Barbie is always in style. Look no further than the all-pink outfits filling red carpets, the countless social media posts with rosy themes, and the takeover of pink in street style. The fashion trend, which has been spotted on celebrities like Lizzo and Florence Pugh, as well as on runways like Valentino, who unveiled a collection of just hot pink designs last spring, has been dubbed “Barbiecore,” in an homage to the stylish doll, whose brand identity is undeniably feminine and very, very pink.
Barbiecore is soaring thanks to the convergence of multiple cultural moments. In July, Greta Gerwig’s highly anticipated Barbie movie will hit theaters, with Margot Robbie starring as the iconic doll. And 2023 finds us well into the resurgence of early-aughts fashion and its bright, sweet styles. According to Lyst’s 2022 “Year in Fashion” report, Barbiecore was the top trend of the past year, which peaked in June 2022, when pictures of Robbie as Barbie clad in an all-hot pink Western outfit were released: her look went viral on TikTok and sparked a 416% increase in searches for pink clothing. But the trend has long been a mainstay of both celebrity and high fashion for years, cycling in and out of vogue for the past two decades.
Read more: How Barbie Came to Life
Darnell Jamall Lisby, a fashion historian and the assistant curator of fashion at the Cleveland Museum of Art, says Barbiecore has become a staple of fashion in the 21st century, recirculating every few years since the early aughts.
“If we hadn’t seen it past the early 2000s, I would have just called it a trend,” Lisby tells TIME. “But it’s definitely reiterated every few years in different ways.”
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