Michaela Merkas wasn’t going to overlook seeing Margot Robbie in particular person.

Since final yr, she and buddy Olivia Hooker have been obsessively following the more and more lavish promotion for the upcoming Barbie film – and now they’re crammed right into a crowd in Sydney’s Pitt Road Mall, the place the movie’s stars Margot Robbie and America Ferrera are becoming a member of the primary fan occasion of a worldwide publicity tour.

Hooker has introduced her personal childhood Barbie doll and is clasping it tight. “I used to be so excited once I heard. I used to be like, ‘I’ve to go – no matter I’ve on that day, I don’t have any extra, I’m going’,” she says.

“It’s been hyped on socials for a really very long time,” Merkas provides. “The sneak peeks of the rollerblading scene – that’s iconic.”

The Barbie film marketing campaign has been a masterclass in advertising, creating an immediate trendy icon from one which was six-decades-old. For the reason that emergence of these first photographs in June 2022 – Robbie and Ryan Gosling decked out in fluoro pink and yellow, rollerblading the Venice Seaside boardwalk in what Robbie would later describe as “essentially the most humiliating second of my life” – the anticipation has been fever pitch.

There’s a lifesize Barbie Dreamhouse in Malibu you’ll be able to try and win an evening at; an Architectural Digest tour of the plastic incredible set; and model tie-ups from suitcases and Xbox controllers to electric toothbrushes and makeup. And, sure, you’ll be able to even purchase these rollerblades for $US289 – plus one other $US99 for the knee, elbow and wrist protectors.

If the movie itself contributed to a worldwide scarcity of pink paint, its promo workforce didn’t assist.

Barbie, which opens in Australia on 20 July and within the UK and US the next day, is anticipated be one of many greatest films of the yr. Directed and co-written by Woman Hen and Little Girls’s Greta Gerwig, and starring Robbie, Gosling, Ferrera, Issa Rae and a teeming ensemble forged, the expectations are as stratospheric as Astronaut Barbie’s house station.

On Pitt Road Mall, the clamouring crowd is decked out in all shades of pink – magenta, fuchsia, cerise, rose, neon and the remainder. There are months-old infants in pink beanies, older ladies with scorching pink-striped scarves, and an individual in a rainbow-coloured tulle mermaid skirt. The celebs greet followers lined-up alongside the Mall, signing Barbie dolls in containers and taking photographs earlier than ascending the stage for a Q&A; in a refreshing sartorial second, Robbie takes a selfie with a person in a Slipknot hoodie.

Vincent Nardella wears a string of pearls, pink-rimmed sun shades and a marbled salmon-pink prime layered beneath his blush jacket.

“Barbie was a part of my childhood however one which was hidden,” he says. “I went to my sister’s room and performed along with her Barbie. To see that in real-life with this film, it means lots. It’s vital to rejoice everybody and each kind of particular person.”

Gerwig’s Barbie film, produced by Robbie’s manufacturing firm LuckyChap Leisure, has been at pains to emphasize its inclusivity. The forged consists of Barbies and Kens from all backgrounds and physique varieties, with trans actor Hari Nef as Physician Barbie.

Throughout a media occasion the day earlier than at Sydney’s Bondi seashore, Gerwig says the target market for the movie is anybody from eight to 108. “It’s a film that I feel can actually reduce throughout generations and genders. Everybody can discover a pink, glittery existential dance social gathering of their coronary heart.”

Gerwig’s mom wasn’t a fan of Barbie – which solely made her child-self extra within the toy. “I had loads of hand-me-down Barbies, so I acquired loads of Barbies who had been like Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie. They didn’t have footwear and their garments had been backwards.”

After Robbie introduced her on to the undertaking, Gerwig went to Mattel headquarters, the place the enterprise opened up their archives for her.

“They took me by every little thing from 1959 till now,” she says – a deep dive which compelled Gerwig to re-position what Barbie’s legacy means to followers at this time.

“If there have been guidelines, I feel we broke all of them. That was a part of the enjoyable, in a means. Like, ‘Inform me what your sacred cows are and I’ll do one thing naughty with them’.”

Gerwig needed to faucet into the complete gamut of feelings surrounding the Barbie model, and all of the totally different emotions – optimistic, detrimental and impartial – it evokes.

“In case you love Barbie, you’re going to find it irresistible, in case you hate Barbie, you’re going to find it irresistible,” Robbie says. “However in case you similar to a very good film, you’re going to find it irresistible.”

In Sydney’s Pitt Road Mall, the followers are undoubtedly primed to find it irresistible.

“I’ve such a deep reference to Barbie,” says Hooker, nonetheless holding her doll. “I performed along with her as a child and [continued] all through highschool. I used to be a bit judged for that however Barbie is coming again round. And it’s validating for me.”