How Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge Judge Tiffany Brooks Says Barbie Inspires Her - Exclusive
HGTV's "Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge" is ready to declare a winner, and fans are equally as excited to see which team comes out on top as they are to see the remaining designs. In this one-of-a-kind, four-part event series, designers from across the network compete to create a real-life Barbie Dreamhouse, with over-the-top design elements, hidden features, and a color palette inspired by the iconic character and her Dreamhouse. With each team assigned specific decades for each room and designated area of the house, the designers have the chance to stretch their creativity to the fullest while paying homage to each era of Barbie.
As one of the judges of the show, fellow HGTV designer Tiffany Brooks has judged competing designs based on a team's assigned decade, but also for their specific references and nods to the various Barbie Dreamhouses over the years — which she can easily identify as a lifelong Barbie fanatic herself. In an exclusive interview with House Digest, Tiffany Brooks shared how Barbie's do-it-all, modern spirit inspires her both personally and as a designer.
To Brooks, Barbie embodies women's capacity to do anything
As an interior designer who doesn't shy away from infusing some fun and color into her own spaces, it's no surprise that Brooks has always gravitated toward Barbie and her similarities. "I love me some Barbie houses, everything about Barbie and its architecture," Brooks says. I am all about it." Just as Barbie is known for her bold use of color in design, so is Brooks, who notes that Barbie's strong aesthetic and fearlessness when it comes to bold hues resonates with her as a designer.
In addition to Barbie's chic sense of style in the home inspiring Brooks as a designer, she also gets a lot of personal inspiration from Barbie and connects with her in a more nostalgic way. "Barbie resonates with me personally," she says. "It's something that my dad would, every other Friday when he would get his paycheck, he would buy me a Barbie doll. That is something that has always stuck with me. When my father passed away, that's when I picked up collecting Barbie dolls again as an adult, and I'm a 40-something-year-old adult. I picked up collecting them again, to reminisce. Then, it turned into this phenomenon of architecture. I look back and see Barbie as a piece of nostalgia, so I definitely resonate with it."
Brooks says she also finds inspiration from Barbie simply for who she represents as the ever-evolving modern woman — someone who is not only stylish, but smart, determined, and capable of doing it all. "It's something about Barbie, the glamor, the modern woman," she said. "We can literally, as women, do anything, and Barbie embodies all of that."
Watch the special series finale of "Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge" Sunday, August 6 at 8:00 p.m. ET on HGTV.