If you put the doll in the Dreamhouse and she puts her hands in the air, she can touch the ceiling. She is strikingly out of scale. It’s the same with the car. Barbie never quite fits because her legs don’t bend. We worked it out to be 23% smaller than human size for the sets. What this did is when you built it for real, you made the actors seem bigger in the house. That gives it a toy quality or what we found out Mattel calls 'toyetic'. Finding what it is that makes it a toy.
--Barbie production designer Sarah Greenwood
To my mind, we were creating a toy. A toy is tactile, a toy is real. Everybody knows what’s CGI. Your sixth sense will tell you—even children will know. So, with the painted backdrops, it just gave everybody the belief that you are in the toy box, you are in there, you are a toy.
--Barbie set decorator Katie Spencer
