Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie looks like a childhood dream come to life — and like a kid playing with the dolls, it seems the cast was encouraged to play with their characters’ dress-up looks, too. In a new interview with Vogue, costume designer Jacqueline Durran (who previously worked with Gerwig on Little Women) revealed that Ryan Gosling brought an essential piece of Ken’s wardrobe to the table: his Ken underwear.
The actor suggested the Calvin Klein-esque briefs at a late fitting, Durran explained. Fortunately, the Oscar-winning designer was into it. “We just rushed to make it,” she said. The last-minute addition ended up prompting one of the first viral moments on Barbie’s promotional cycle, more than a year before the film would actually premiere on July 21, 2023. Some fans even called for Mattel to release official, movie tie-in Ken underwear — which doesn’t seem to be available yet (a travesty), though you can buy a Ken doll with the briefs peeking out of his costume.
Even Gosling’s partner, Eva Mendes, got in on the fun. “When I saw it, he sent it to me from work and I said, ‘Can I please have that underwear? Please,’” Mendes recalled on The Talk last summer. “‘I never ask for anything.’” She even took things a step further and joked that she was wearing the underwear on the show. “I feel like my men has started a real renaissance — like, a Kenaissance.”
It’s fitting that Gosling wanted to put a personal spin on the doll, who’s naturally taken second billing to Barbie over the years. “It is funny, this kind of clutching-your-pearls idea of, like, #notmyken,” Gosling recently told GQ of Ken’s naysayers. “Like you ever thought about Ken before this?” He also said he feels a personal attachment to the character today. “I care about this dude now. I’m like his representative. ‘Ken couldn’t show up to receive this award, so I’m here to accept it for him.’”
As it turns out, Ken’s underwear wasn’t the only cast contribution to Barbie. Margot Robbie recently revealed that she asked Gerwig to include a specific Barbie Dreamhouse in the film — one that she played with as a child. “I’ll follow your vision. Whatever you want this Barbie movie to be, let’s do that,” Robbie recalled on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “Except I just have one favor: Please, please, please can we have a Dreamhouse where she has a slide that goes from her bedroom down to her pool because that is my goal in life.” To Robbie and viewers’ delight, Gerwig obliged.
