The elderly woman Barbie shares a smile with is not Barbara Handler, but in fact costume designer, Ann Roth.

Ann Roth has had a long career as the costume designer for a wide range of movies, including one of my favorites, Mamma Mia!

Costume appreciation

SIGOURNEY WEAVER in Heartbreakers (2001)

Costume design by Ann Roth.

Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman) Green shirtwaist & skirt.. Cold Mountain (2003).. Costume by Ann Roth & Carlo Poggioli.

BARBIE (2023)

✁ costume designers ANN ROTH ⤸ The Village (2004) dir. M. Night Shyamalan

Nicole Kidman as Ada Monroe in Cold Mountain (Film, 2003).

Barbie (2023)

✨️W a t c h i n g✨️

Taking a break from Halloween movies to watch this with my mom. 🩷

anyways i've seen this bit of misinformation circling recently and i just want to clarify that the old woman in the bench scene in barbie IS NOT BARBARA HANDLER. Her name is Ann Roth, and she's an oscar-winning costume designer!!!!!

'There is a scene towards the beginning of Anthony Minghella’s 1999 film, The Talented Mr Ripley, when Jude Law’s character, Dickie Greenleaf, asks Matt Damon’s Tom Ripley what his talent is – to which literature’s most famous fraud replies with: “Forging signatures, telling lies, impersonating practically anybody”. Yet there is another talent of Tom’s that is essential in his ability to deceive those around him into thinking that he is one of them – and that’s his sartorial savoir-faire.

Fashion is of vital importance to Tom, in both the novel by Patricia Highsmith and subsequent adaptations, including that 1999 film, but also 1960’s French New Wave retelling, Purple Noon, and the upcoming black-and-white Netflix version, Ripley, starring Andrew Scott in the titular role. The style of the 1999 movie – Jude Law’s polo shirts, white trousers and boat shoes, Gwyneth Paltrow’s high-waist bikinis, broderie anglaise tops and peasant skirts – is still referenced by designers today (it won costume designer Ann Roth an Oscar at the time).

And while Matt Damon’s character is certainly au fait with fashion, he’s without the means to access it in the same way that the other characters are: he has one shirt he washes out nightly, a threadbare cord jacket Dickie offers to replace, and one pair of dress shoes that he has to wear to the beach. In many ways, the film is at pains to emphasise that, though Tom is good at what he does, he’s not quite good enough – after all, Dickie, Marge (Paltrow) and Freddie Miles (Philip Seymour Hoffman) all figure him out. Yet it is with fashion that he manages to move in these circles. In fact, it’s how he accesses them in the first place, having borrowed a Princeton jacket for a piano recital when he first encounters Dickie’s father, who mistakes him for a student and pleads with him to fetch home his wayward son.

In the novel, Tom is obsessed with clothing, spending hours touching Dickie’s shirts and jackets or fingering the jewellery on his dressing table, saying that doing so “reminded him he existed”. His spectacles serve as a way to switch between characters – like a villainous Clark Kent and Superman – while his decision to wear Dickie’s monogrammed velvet slippers and signet rings after he has (spoiler alert) murdered him, alerts Marge and Freddie to the fact something isn’t right.

Fashion is often used by literature’s anti-heroes as a significant tool in their arsenal to deceive...

“The way we dress does, to an extent, affect how people see us, but it’s context dependent,” explains Dr Dion Terrelonge, a fashion psychologist. “It’s about alignment and how we fit in with people’s expectations. We like to think we don’t judge others based on what they are wearing, but we do. It’s not a negative judgement, necessarily; it’s about interpreting and categorising. It helps us navigate the world.”

Whether or not you wield that power for good or for evil is the differentiator. “When you wear an item of clothing that you associate with a certain person, lifestyle or behaviour, then you’re far more likely to take on those things,” explains Dr Terrelonge. “When people copy other people’s style, they’re trying to align themselves with them and their lifestyle. It’s walking 100 miles in their shoes. It’s shorthand for, ‘this is the kind of person I am’ – you look the part.”

For conners, it’s “fake it til you make it” or “dress for the job you want” writ large. As Tom famously says in his final speech in the film, “I thought it was better to be a fake somebody, than a real nobody.”'

"You're so beautiful," "I know it,"

the scene where barbie looked at the old woman on the bench and told her she's beautiful, my best friend and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes and smiled.

that moment meant so much to us.

lately it's been much more of a common theme in our conversations how scared we are of aging, and getting wrinkles, eye bags and spots. I remember crying after using the stupid tiktok filter and seeing my face with my biggest fears all over.

and trust me, we know that growing old is part of human life, and society has somehow taught us to hate and be afraid of looking old, when we shouldn't, and it should be a beautiful thing. we know, we've had the talk, we've read the quotes, we've heard our therapists.

but there's something so deeply frightening of becoming a version of yourself that isn't what the world wants to see, what the world cares about, what the world considers beautiful. yes, we'll be wiser, and full of experiences, but at what cost?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, that particular scene, gave us a moment of peace, of understanding. that it's scary to be old, but we're not the only ones who feel that way. and I guess, we can always find some kind of beauty in ourselves, even if it's different.

MELANIE GRIFFITH in WORKING GIRL (1988).

Costume design by ANN ROTH

Sorted caps for some characters from Barbie.

America Ferrera - Gloria

Ann Roth - Ruth Handler

Arianna Greenblatt - Sasha

Katie McKinnon - Weird Barbie

Margot Robbie - Barbie

Ryan Gosling - Ken

Sharon Rooney - Barbie

Simu Liu - Ken

Will Ferrell - Mattel CEO

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White Noise (Noah Baumbach, 2022).

✁ costume designers ANN ROTH ⤸ & Carlo Poggioli Cold Mountain (2003) dir. Anthony Minghella