Why BarbieStyle is the new It girl on Instagram + 18 picks to emulate her look

by Renée Tse April 17, 2015

A photo posted by Barbie® (@barbiestyle) on Apr 14, 2015 at 2:07pm PDT

Move over, Chiara. There’s a new It girl, erm, doll on Instagram and she has a closet that even puts Kim Kardashian to shame. Cue the ultimate throwback.

She may have had her fair share of controversy, but Barbie is making a comeback, thanks to new-ish Instagram account: @BarbieStyle. It’s been only seven months since the launch of Barbie’s design VP Kim Culmone’s mini side project and the account has already generated 713K followers to date. Working with the company’s director of design Robert Best and photographer Zlatan Zukanovic, the trio acts as the It doll’s A-team, from styling her day-to-day looks to managing her social calendar for important events like the Golden Globes, Fashion Month and most recently, Coachella. And with our childhood idol reigning supreme in our minds this spring (we have Jeremy Scott’s army of real-life Barbie dolls on the Moschino Spring 2015 runway to thank), there’s no doubt we’re living in a Barbie world.

So what’s the reason behind @BarbieStyle’s cult following? Well, for one thing, the team smartly tapped into a fun niche. Because let’s be real here, we’ve never seen anything like it from a brand this big. While the company’s official account (@Barbie) acts as a marketing platform for the brand (fan regrams, product launches, etc.), @BarbieStyle is essentially just like any other It girl’s Instagram, an account of her adventures and #ootds in real time.

Just like the top dogs of Instagram, Barbie’s feed contains tappable snapshots of her everyday life, from posting her chic (bespoke, of course) outfits to her accessories of the day (think doll-size copies of Chanel, Céline and Carven–to name a few) to her beauty must-haves. Styling tips are included.

“We pretend she’s a little person going to do all these things,” Best says in an interview with Racked, “so we think, ‘How would she do them? What would she wear? What would her point of view be?’ If Barbie’s like our celebrity and we’re her team, you don’t want her to falter!”

So to solve your (and our) Barbie nostalgia, we round up 18 of the best Barbie-inspired pieces out there, from pink motorcycle jackets to retro swimsuits to fierce iPhone cases.