Style Director Tori Mellott Is Living in a Barbie World

Growing up, I passionately loved (and still passionately love) Barbie. I can still recall with fierce accuracy all of my dolls, their hairdos, their shoes, their outfits—and I had a lot of them. In order to save money, my grandmother painstakingly made all the clothes for my Barbies, and while I didn’t have a Barbie Dreamhouse, I did have a beautiful handmade dollhouse my grandfather constructed over the course of a year. He used wallpaper scraps from our house to paper the rooms, solid-colored felt as the carpet, and he made and upholstered all of the furniture himself. (To be clear, I played with my Barbies adjacent to the dollhouse—they were way too big for my grandfather’s refined Victorian gingerbread house.)

At the top of my summer movie list: Barbie, of course.COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. PICTURES

My favorite thing to play was “Barbie shoe store.”  I would collect various boxes from around the house, create a floor plan, and once I had all of the displays laid out perfectly, I’d style and merchandise the shoes. I could spend hours doing this—tinkering, rearranging, and experimenting. No one ever came into the store—I don’t think it had a customer-service department, let alone a name—but I was always very pleased with my creation.

I probably played with Barbies (and concocted imaginary stores) longer than I should have; in fact, I was fifteen when I finally—and begrudgingly—put my dolls in a box in our attic. But that time spent with Barbie remains some of my warmest, fondest memories of childhood. Even as a grown-up, I couldn’t be more excited about the Barbiecore trend that’s taking over this summer—and now, as a design magazine editor, I finally get to curate my very own Barbie store!

Shop Tori’s Barbie Starter Pack

Everything in our shop was hand-picked by a FREDERIC editor. We may earn commission on items you purchase.