With ‘Wicked,’ Fashion Tests the Limits of the ‘Barbie’ Model

This year, Bloomingdale’s holiday windows swapped red and green for pink and green.

The retailer dedicated the holiday display at its Manhattan flagship to the much-anticipated “Wicked” movie, featuring pink puff skirts, sweaters and chandeliers next to glowering green lights, giant moving flowers and dark suiting. Hundreds of people gathered for the unveiling last week, including Cynthia Erivo (who plays Elphaba, or the Wicked Witch of the West, in the movie), Broadway singers and dancers wearing looks from the “Wicked” collection by Aqua, Bloomingdale’s in-house line. After Erivo lifted the dark green curtain to showcase the windows, shoppers — some already wearing “Wicked”-themed accessories from Aldo, Forever 21 and Target — joined long lines for Bloomingdale’s Emerald City Atelier, a room of floor-to-ceiling green shelves filled with Wicked-centric holiday gifts, scurrying between green boxes of La Mer skincare, Beis luggage, teddy bears, pink tulle dresses and heels.

“We didn’t expect that many customers [at the event],” said Kevin Harter, Bloomingdale’s vice president of integrated marketing. “Demand was crazy … and this is just the beginning”

“Wicked” is proving popular for fashion. Besides Bloomingdale’s, fashion and beauty brands including Gap, Rebecca Minkoff, Roots, Ulta Beauty, R.e.m. Beauty, Crocs and H&M have all rolled out “Wicked”-themed collections or collaborations. They’re tapping the film’s starpower: Designer Naeem Khan presented a “Wicked” inspired runway for Spring/Summer 2025, a look from which Erivo later wore to the Academy Museum Gala in 2024, while Gap and Zac Posen brought the star, clad in a hooded gown, as a guest to the CFDA awards. Throughout the film’s press tour, Erivo and co-star Ariana Grande have worn coordinating pink and green looks.

Call it the “Barbie” effect. Last year, parent company Mattel inked a huge number of fashion collaborations in anticipation of the film’s release, a strategy that led to yes, “Barbie” grossing over $1 billion at the box office, but also a boost in attention for the brands that participated, many of whom reached a new customer through the tactic. It was a turning point for brands in recognising the power of plugging into pop-culture moments, and studios in tapping the power of fashion to fuel ticket sales.

“Barbie was a shocker for all of us. It was so much bigger than what we could have anticipated,” said Amanda Amar, vice president of global brand strategy of accessories maker Aldo, which put out a line of Wicked-inspired jewelled heels and purses after its hit Barbie collaboration last year. “That helped us understand the phenomenon of pop culture moments and the press, excitement and conversation they stimulate.”

With Wicked, brands are trying to make lightning strike twice. As they pile in — products range from $1 Walmart Mac-and-Cheese to a $2,999 embellished bomber by Australian ready-to-wear line Camilla — fashion is putting the model to the test.

“Barbie was such a singular moment. Every brand paid attention and is trying to replicate that playbook,” said Karen Fielding, chief strategy officer of creative agency General Idea. “Now we’ll see what consumers’ appetite is for that scale of collaborations when it becomes a repeated formula.”

Playing the Pop Culture Game

For Hollywood, flooding the market with branded items drives conversation and fills storefronts with reminders to head to the theatre. For brands, it drives buzz (and SEO), while also getting to benefit from the massive amount of promotion film studios do.

“Wicked feels like an event. We want to move at the speed of culture and at the speed of our consumer,” said Mark Breitbard, chief executive of Gap. “If there’s a wave of something, we want to be there.”

“Barbie” and “Wicked” have several common threads. They’re both beloved intellectual properties — “Wicked” has been a Broadway staple for nearly 20 years — with a familiar story and a built-in fanbase. And like “Barbie,” “Wicked” has cross-generational appeal and a megawatt cast led by Grande and Erivo as well as “Bridgerton” actor Jonathan Bailey and Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh. Plus, it also has an identifiable colour theme.

“You drop that emerald green anywhere and you’ve got an asset,” said Ryan Frost, executive creative director at marketing firm Landor.

Collaborations attract new customers and give existing shoppers timely reasons to come to the store, though it’s less about selling out of sparkly shoes and more about building “brand demand,” or, increasing the amount of people searching for Aldo online, said Amar.

Some are using “Wicked” with the hope of conjuring lost magic. Printed tote-maker Vera Bradley, for instance, reached a peak in the mid-aughts, around the same time “Wicked” premiered on Broadway. The brand hopes its “Wicked” collection — which includes grown-up evening bags in new materials — will reach those shoppers who carried its overnight bags through college, said chief marketing officer Alison Hiatt.

Culturally-relevant partnerships like “Wicked” help Gap show it has its finger on the pulse, a key element of its ongoing comeback, said Breitbard. While collaborations with brands like Doên and Cult Gaia help build fashion cred, “Wicked” speaks to the mainstream. Bloomingdale’s, similarly, is hoping “Wicked” and other themed activations — like its From Italy with Love edit in September — will push shoppers to visit its flagship more regularly.

Like with “Barbie,” what’s particularly notable about the Wicked collaborations is just how many of them there are. Even though most fashion partnerships run on exclusivity, brands are choosing to look at the lack of it here as an advantage, not a deterrent.

“It amplifies the fact that this is a cultural phenomenon,” said Masako Konishi, Forever 21′s head of merchandising. “The more brands collaborate with Wicked, the more the story gets out there.”

Will it Last?

While “Barbie” pioneered this fashion-centric marketing approach to film, with “Wicked,” brands want to finesse their approach. Participants are getting more strategic with their offers and cadence for promoting products.

“It cannot be this basic, average, put a logo on a T-shirt collaboration,” said Konishi.

Forever 21′s top sellers are special pieces like sequined football-style green and pink jersey dresses and an $89 pink tulle ball gown (the most expensive piece in the collection). Gap created new graphics — replacing the “A” in its logoed sweatshirts with Glenda and Elphaba’s profiles. Amar said Universal Studios helped Aldo find an angle on what themes to target — such as a shoe with a heel that looks like Glenda’s wand and ultra embellished purses — that was differentiated from the mix.

But brands are still learning about who exactly they’re reaching. When the “Wicked” campaign is over, Aldo will compare results with its “Barbie” performance to determine whether customers are shopping multiple collabs and if they continue buying from the regular Aldo line afterwards, said Amar.

More and more, participating in these pop-culture swells is becoming an expectation. After “Barbie,” Amar said that Aldo’s wholesalers started asking what it was doing for “Wicked.”

And going into what’s expected to be a more muted holiday season, moments like “Wicked” give retailers an opportunity to get consumers excited. Bloomingdale’s, for example, offered top shoppers VIP seats for the window unveiling, special scarves and an advance screening.

Wicked is driving store traffic, engagement on social media and growing reach. But there’s a line to walk: Oversaturate shoppers, and you run the risk of exhausting them.

“There’s something about this magnetic being everywhere all at once,” said Frost. “But then to drive memorability, there has to be distinction and a sense of scarcity too.”