Did ‘Barbie’ Actually Cause a Pink Paint Shortage?

We all know Barbie’s infamous pink shade; it’s been with us and in many of our homes for 63 years. Now, we’re about to see it for two hours straight on the big screen as Greta Gerwig releases her finding-oneself Barbie film next month.

We didn’t really know all that much about the film or its plot until the full-length trailer dropped last month and since then, details have been leaking out like there’s no tomorrow. Including pictures of the set for the doll’s infamous home, the Dreamhouse.

The latest rumor that’s been flying around is that they used so much Barbie pink in the set design that there was a global shortage. But was there really a shortage? Or is this just some ridiculous rumor to bolster the tongue-in-cheek chaos that is Barbie?

The Barbie-pink paint shortage, explained

Gerwig was recently interviewed by Architectural Digest alongside set designer Sarah Greenwood and set director Katie Spencer. “Maintaining the ‘kid-ness’ was paramount,” Gerwig explained. “I wanted the pinks to be very bright, and everything to be almost too much.” Apparently, Greenwood then laughed and said, “The world ran out of pink.”

The Los Angeles Times then did God’s work and contacted the company that supplied the paint, Rosco, to see if they actually ran out of paint. Turns out that they did, in fact, give them “everything they could.”

Rosco is renowned in the entertainment industry and is a specialist in supplying paint for film and theatre, so it’s no surprise that Gerwig’s team went to them to get the bright pink that permeates Barbie Land.

Lauren Proud, Vice President of Global Marketing at Rosco, said that there were still supply chain issues stemming from the pandemic. This followed the 2021 Texas blackout that affected their goods and the “vital” materials that they use to create their Hollywood paint. But that didn’t stop Rosco from giving the production team everything they needed to create a home for the iconic doll played by Margot Robbie.

“There was this shortage, and then we gave them everything we could—I don’t know. They can claim credit … They did clear us out on paint.”

(featured image: Warner Bros.)