Día De Muertos Barbie Dolls x Benito Santos Exclusive Design Debuts
In keeping with Barbie’s annual tradition we’ve got a new Día De Muertos Barbie doll with stunning colors and calavera designs inspired by the traditional holiday
Photographer Rafael Ortega Stylist Sheryl Fetrick
In keeping with Barbie’s annual tradition we’ve got a new Día De Muertos Barbie doll with stunning colors and calavera designs inspired by the traditional holiday. Mexican American Barbie designer Javier Meabe designed the dolls that includes a Barbie with a ruffled royal purple dress and florals with calavera sugar skulls. The Ken doll wears a charro look featuring a bright blue shirt under a vest with skulls, flowers, roses and bones. But this year there’s a bonus doll designed in collaboration with world-renowned Mexican fashion designer, Benito Santos. The Benitos Santos x Barbie doll wears black charro-inspired attire featuring white and crimson embroidered details, a mermaid hemline and a cropped bolero jacket.
“For this year’s doll I worked very closely with our Latin American partners. I wanted the design to be full of vibrant colors and artwork. I lined up the previous Día De Muertos dolls and was inspired to bring some newness to this year’s line by giving Barbie a color-blocked dress with embroidery and pigment print artwork. I then used calavera make up, marigolds, and sugar skull skeletons to tie all the previous dolls in the series together to feel like they are all from the same environment,” Meabe said in a statement.
Santos studied medicine at the University of Guadalajara and then went on to study fashion design in Lanspiac Institute of Guadalajara. He was born and raised in Tepehuaje de Morelos Jalisco in Mexico. He has dressed famous women including Miss Universe 2010 Ximena Navarrete who also wore his designs to the Cannes Film Festival and former First Lady of Mexico Angelica Rivera. Santos has participated in major fashion shows including New York Fashion Week, Los Angeles and Vancouver Fashion Week.
“The Barbie Dia De Muertos Collection honors the customs, symbols and rituals often seen throughout this festive time of remembrance,” he wrote in a caption on Instagram debuting his design.
“Working with Benito Santos was a highly collaborative experience. What I loved the most about this collaboration was being able to bring Benito’s vision to life in a new way. He shared trend boards so we could understand what themes he was eager to convey and then we worked together to bring his creative vision to a Barbie scale,” Meabe said in a statement. It was a passion project from both Benito’s team and the Barbie team. I’m thrilled to welcome Benito to the Barbie brand and share his vision of what it means to him to celebrate Día De Muertos with Barbie.”
The collection launched Sept. 8 and the Santos doll is already sold out but the other dolls are available for purchase on the Mattel Creations website for $80.
