Barbie-mania is in the air with the long-awaited summer blockbuster “Barbie” starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
HGTV can also be on board with its recent reality show “Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge”, which features HGTV star Tiffany Brooks amongst the judges.
“My immediate response [to being asked on the show] was “After all”. I didn’t care what else I had planned. I needed to be there,” Brooks told The Post.
“I have been to some of their competition shows before and I do know all the network stars eat, breathe and live to compete,” she said. “I even have yet to satisfy a non-competitive person online. So I knew they were able to win.
The host is a model Ashley GrahamThe “Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge” airs Sundays at 8 p.m. and follows eight teams of HGTV stars as they transform a Southern California home right into a real-life “Barbie Dreamhouse.”
Each team is given an area, akin to a kitchen or lounge, and assigned a decade (Nineteen Sixties, Nineties, etc.)
![Ashley Graham is sitting on the couch in an orange dress.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014050551.jpg?w=1024)
![A white house with pink trim and HGTV stars standing in the driveway.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014049306.jpg?w=1024)
![Tiffany Brooks (center) with fellow judges Jonathan Adler and Marsai Martin.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014058691.jpg?w=1024)
Then they transform the designated space with life-sized pieces that seem like they have been taken straight out of the Barbie Dreamhouse set – including a pink staircase, a purple pet elevator or a light-up dance floor. A panel of judges determine which team will advance to the next round, and the winning team receives a donation made on their behalf to Save The Children.
Brooks, a 44-year-old interior designer from Chicago, is an everyday on HGTV. She won “HGTV Star” in 2013 and was the host/designer of “HGTV Smart Home” in 2020 (and contestant on the second season of “Rock the Block”).
![Tiffany Brooks smile.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014056618.jpg?w=844)
![Host Ashley Graham (right) and judges Jonathan Adler, Tiffany Brooks (center) and Nischelle Turner chat with Team Jonathan Knight and Kristina Crestin. They are standing together in a pink bedroom, laughing.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014058686.jpg?w=1024)
![](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014058681.jpg?w=1024)
She can also be a longtime fan of Barbie.
“I even have a complete of nine Dreamhouses and Barbie structures. Principally, I even have a Barbie city. I made some of them myself, and just a few I restored,” she said. “And a pair I purchased outright. So I’m a bit of a fanatic. It is a fun hobby.
“After I was 10, I had my very own Barbie town,” she said. “I finished fiddling with them after I was 12 or 13. I went back to it as an adult after I lost my father because that was one of the things my dad would do – receives a commission every week and buy me a recent Barbie doll or playset along with his paycheck.
“He used to come back home and surprise me. I got it back after I lost it and it grew until I had a Barbie village with a food market, a movie show, a restaurant… I even have a nod to Barbie in my own residence – my library is pink. Bookcases, ceilings, partitions, every part.
![Photo of a white house with pink trim and text](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014049260.png?w=1024)
![Tiffany Brooks smile.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014056619.jpg?w=1024)
![Swimming pool behind the house with pink furniture.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014050554.jpg?w=1024)
Participants in the first episode of “Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge” include couple Egypt Sherrod and Mike Jackson (“Married to Real Estate”), who compete against builder Jasmine Roth (“Help! I Wrecked My House”) and Antonia Lofaso from Food Network (“Brawl”) on the beach”).
Kitty Black Perkins appears and is credited with designing the first Black Barbie doll, while Maureen McCormick (“A Very Brady Renovation”) also stars as a celeb, joining Brooks.
“Teams have to reflect the decade of their home,” said Brooks.
“Additionally they needed to have a ‘toy’ feature, which is like in Barbie’s dream house, you press a button and something happens. So that they were judged on that, overall style and the way well they executed the overall look.
![Maureen McCormick wearing glasses, standing in the lobby.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014050548.jpg?w=1024)
![Ashley Graham in a black dress with feathers on the red carpet.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000013836328.jpg?w=1024)
![Host Ashley Graham (right) and judges Jonathan Adler, Tiffany Brooks and celebrity Christian Siriano (left) stand in a row in the garden.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014058676.jpg?w=1024)
![Host Ashley Graham addresses all the contestants and judges, including Tiffany Brooks, standing in the yard.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014058695.jpg?w=1024)
“One of the things I used to be searching for was an actual reference to Barbie Dreamhouses or playsets from the many years they got,” she said. “Iconic features like the plaid or some of the patterns that Barbie used to make use of.
“The subsequent thing I used to be searching for was to ensure that that a person of our size could use the toy features in the space itself.”