Silkstone

In the year 2000, the Barbie Fashion Model Collection was created. The line designed by Robert Best and intended for adult collectors, recovered the 1959 facemold to bring to life a world of haute couture around Barbie. Only one detail was missing... the material had to look like porcelain so Silkstone was born. During the 90s Mattel launched some reproductions in porcelain of models from Barbie's first wardrobe such as Gay Parisienne or Solo in The Spotlight among others, of course, with the faces of the first ones but also, of course, in boxes full of protections. Yes, porcelain is as beautiful as it is fragile, so a more resistant material had to be found if they wanted Barbie Fashion Model Collection to be a success with which to start the millennium and they found it in polybutylene terephthalate or PBT. According to wikipedia "PBT is a (semi)crystalline thermoplastic polymer and a type of polyester" with certain properties that, in addition to dolls, make it ideal for use in bathroom items such as countertops, the automotive industry or textiles. Each application has its research behind it and in the case of Silkstone, Mattel's corporate director of new technology, Isaak Volynsky, said in a 2000 interview for designnews.com magazine, that the PBT had to be adapted to fill very difficult parts like the hands, that tend to be detailed and brittle, without cracking, so they had to add proprietary impact modifiers and 30% mineral filler. They wanted a doll with the flawless appearance of porcelain but with a strength that would allow it to be presented in a cardboard box without foam in which it could be displayed and at a lower price than porcelain. To test the material they dropped a 36 inch doll with an outstretched arm and that experiment reveled the need to change the angle of the thumb, but other than this it proved to be suitable for the body but not for the head as it did not allow the accommodation of the holes to secure the hair so that part was done in hard vinyl. As a result, they achieved a material soft to the touch with the weight of porcelain due to the density of the PBT molecules and with a beautiful reflection of the skin color that have characterized the BFMC during their 20 years on the market posing in their high fashion models for which very special campaigns were made... A haute couture show in the 50s, a Sicilian wedding or a mysterious Siberian station are some of the settings that the Californian artist Lars Auvinen has created for this Barbie line. As a stage designer, publicist and technology specialist, Lars Auvinen uses hidden devices in his dioramas to trick the eye and the camera into creating environments that help tell the story. Lights that resemble the sun that sneaks into an Italian street to the rhythm of a mandolin, steam surrounding a freezing station where a train has arrived and a camera work that plays with lights and blurs to present each doll and its exceptional details. The voice and the rapid changes of shots give the commercial the rhythm that needs and music such as the Danse Macabre by Saint Saëns help the viewer to set the mood. In this case, Death playing the violin at night surrounds the station in mystery and advances that something is about to happen. The best thing about all this is that it makes our imagination run wild and create the continuation of the story that is hinted at and that makes us wish we had all the dolls. These wonderful dioramas could be seen reassembled at the Barbie exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 2016. And for everything that begins has an end, the Barbie Fashion Model Collection line saw its last models in 2020 after two decades of Fiorellas, Francies and Mad Mens posing and making the imagination of adult collectors fly high.