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2023 has been a banner year for Stevie Nicks to see herself interpreted in pop culture. Back in March Riley Keough played the titular character in Daisy Jones and The Six, and while Daisy Jones wasn’t a literal telling of Stevie’s time in Fleetwood Mac, Stevie said she felt like “a ghost watching her own story” when she saw the series. And now in the month of Halloween (coincidence? I think not), Stevie Nicks has been immortalized with her very own witchy-chic Barbie, and she is not too cool to freak out over it. After debuting the doll at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday, Stevie chatted with People Mag about getting her own Barbie, and her comments are just as mystic and ethereal as you’d hope:
Barbie is a big deal at any age: “When I got her, it’s like my whole world changed,” the hitmaker recalls, adding that she “just so fell in love with her. She is really her own little feminist person at not even a foot tall,” she says. “She’s strong and she’s fierce and she’s solid.” To Nicks, the tambourine-carrying doll is more than just a mini-me — she’s a reflection of herself that holds all of the experiences she’s “either forgotten or just put away. I see everything in her,” she says. “When I look at her, it’s like she’s my whole life from beginning to now. When I look at her, all the memories are all there. She’s a dream catcher,” Nicks adds. “She catches all the memories and dreams, holds them in her hands and shows them to you.”
Nicks lent Mattel clothing from her archives: Absent from the Barbie are some of Nicks’ most recognizable accessories: intricate ponchos, towering top hats and — perhaps most iconic of all — her shawls. Instead, the doll’s all-black ensemble was lifted right from the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s masterwork, Rumours. The singer says she sent Mattel the original outfit — a dreamy velvet and silk chiffon frock with angel sleeves and a shredded hemline — straight from her “vault.” And, rather than the Rumours ballet shoes, she sent along a pair of boots made by famed shoemaker Pasquale di Fabrizio. “I said, ‘If you can copy those boots, Mattel, and copy this outfit, we are home free,’” Nicks recalls.
Mattel nailed the Stevie uniform: With the final touches of her billowy bangs and iconic crescent moon pendant, the doll’s look quickly crystallized — and it’s about as Stevie as can be. It is so Stevie, in fact, that it actually resembles the original stick figure the singer sketched of her now-iconic “uniform” for stylist Margi Kent ahead of her first Fleetwood Mac tour. “I drew a stick girl in this little outfit. It was a little handkerchief skirt, little platform boots, sleeves that dropped almost to the ground and that was it,” Nicks says, adding that she knew from the first try-on the outfit was “never going to go out of style. It’s never going to get old,” she recalls thinking. “It’s just going to get more beautiful and sophisticated … it’s basically what I still wear now.”
Is she way over the top with comments like “When I got her, it’s like my whole world changed,” and “it’s like she’s my whole life from beginning to now”? Oh yes, for sure. But I give full pardons to anyone for waxing extra poetic when they’ve been made into their own FREAKIN’ BARBIE. I would be a hot sobbing mess if I got the B treatment. So go ahead Stevie, tell us how this Barbie is the crystal ball through which all your past, current, and future lives have coalesced into a one-foot talisman of joy. I judge you not.
I love that Stevie lent Mattel pieces from her own archives, or the “vault” as she called it. Can you imagine what the Barbie designers were like opening those packages?! And I also love the shout-out Stevie gave to stylist Margi Kent. Many times a look we think of as iconic to a single person is really a collaboration among many artists, but it doesn’t make the look any less ‘Stevie Nicks’ for her to give credit where it is due. If you’d like to get your very own Stevie Nicks Barbie… good luck!! Seriously, she’s already sold out online, with some very animated would-be buyers complaining to Mattel that the doll is already going for over $100 by resellers on eBay. Update: some are even up to $250 as of this writing. At least Mattel has given us moody, high production value photos we can enjoy for free.
I NEED THIS DOLL IN MY LIFE. I will sell all the holiday barbies I’ve been hoarding for decades for this doll, LOLOLOL.
the doll really does look like Stevie too – the face/hair looks almost exactly like Stevie’s senior portrait in her HS yearbook. Mattel nailed this one.
I think they did a great job with the doll’s face. Really looks like a young Stevie.
The Stevie Nicks Barbie is perfection. I can’t see myself paying $250 for one, but I wouldn’t mind if one ended up in my hands. I think it would look good on my home office shelf next to my RBG and Princess Leia doll figures 🙂
I went online as soon as Stevie announced it on her IG. The dolls were sold out. I love Stevie and she’s my queen, but I’m not paying $250 for a Barbie doll. However, I do think the doll is the very image of her.
Stevie has always credited Margi Kent for designing her onstage look. As Stevie tells it, while she was performing one night she looked out and saw a young lady dressed in flowy fabric, like a dancer, with a Gibson girl hairdo and decided that was the vibe she wanted on stage. Stevie worked with Margi to come up with what she called her uniform. On later tours they modified it a bit to include velvet and other materials. But her look is timelessly rock chic!
Omg. I am…tempted?!!
Will Mattel make a ken version of Lindsey Buckingham?
Is he Kenough?
Lol yessss.
I couldn’t love Stevie Nicks more. Great move by Mattel.
Oh this is fantastic!!!!