Bright pink was the color scheme at a “Barbie Loves Jonathan Adler” fete at Mr. Adler’s Soho boutique Wednesday night. The 43-year-old interior designer and former judge of Bravo’s short-lived Top Design was recently chosen to create a new Malibu Dream House in honor of the doll’s 50th anniversary. “The funnest part for me was liberating my inner kitten. My inner design kitten,” Mr. Adler said. “And being able to just be frivolous and glam.”
As far as working on a small scale, he felt it was “so cute! I’m married to a small-scale husband, after all!” A.k.a. Observer columnist Simon Doonan (see p. 6). “I look at all these middle-aged women in pink dresses squealing over blond Barbies,” Mr. Doonan said, “and I wonder what my feminist lesbian activist sister would think of all this?”
Mr. Adler introduced his own sister, Amy Adler, and her escape-bent 3-year-old son, Harry, to the Transom. “Harry, do you remember the story I told you about Uncle Jonny and the Barbie doll?” asked Ms. Adler. Harry tried to twist off his mother’s arm and run away, not unlike what Uncle Jonny used to do back in the ’70s to Ms. Adler’s own Barbies. “It’s a more accepting time now,” said Mr. Adler, cleaning up some spilled Champagne. “Now little boys can play with Barbie.”
