How The ‘Barbie’ Movie Caused an International Paint Shortage

Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie film features so much pink that it caused an international pink paint shortage.

In a new interview with Architectural Digest, Gerwig explained how she created the Barbie Dreamhouse and world of the fictional doll including all of the shades and hues of pink.

Gerwig hired production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer “to make Barbie real through this unreal world.” Ironically, neither had owned the doll before and ordered her famous Dreamhouse to study it to make sure that their London set was as accurate as possible.

Gerwig explained that “maintaining the ‘kid-ness’ was paramount.” And if the trailer was any indicator, Margot Robbie (Barbie) and Ryan Gosling (Ken) are living in a very pink world.

“I wanted the pinks to be very bright, and everything to be almost too much,” Gerwig shared. Her goal of the film was to make sure that she didn’t “forget what made me love Barbie when I was a little girl.”

When construction took place, it caused an international run on the fluorescent shade of Rosco paints. “The world ran out of pink,” she chuckled.

Gerwig previously told IndieWire that “pink became this film’s thesis.”

“It was epic dealing with the painters, mixing the right colors,” Greenwood added. “When we got to our palette we had over a hundred pinks, ranging from the purpley pinks right through to the fleshy millennial pinks. We hit the sweet spot in the middle, which is about 10 pinks.”

“When it came time to order, they didn’t have enough pigment! Everybody was scrambling around trying to find more,” Greenwood recalled. “I’m sure the producers were going, ‘This pink looks very much like that pink. What is the problem?’ But we got there in the end.”

Barbie hits theaters on July 21.