For years we are told that progress requires stepping outside our comfort zone. But for young fashion designer Ariel Barka, choosing to stay firmly within her area of expertise led her all the way to a meeting with Christina Aguilera at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
It all began in September, when Barka received an email from Aguilera’s stylist that read, “We’ve seen your designs and would like to explore the possibility of you creating a look for a special film marking 25 years of the singer’s career, ‘Christina Aguilera: Christmas in Paris.’”
How do you respond to an email like that?
“With screaming, of course,” Barka recalled. “I was at a friend’s wedding, read the message and started screaming. I was in shock and said, ‘Wait, I need to get myself together.’ I immediately went to his Instagram and saw it was completely legitimate. I started crying. He wrote, ‘We loved your designs. We’re looking for something Christmas-themed. The shoot is in Paris on the Eiffel Tower, a huge production. The film will air on television and be released in cinemas.’ And I just kept thinking, ‘What is happening here? Who is talking to me? Are they messing with me?’”
‘I listened to her music while designing’
They were not joking. Barka, 25, a recent Shenkar graduate who began her studies immediately after military service, has spent the past year working as a stylist for the Instagram magazine Spotlight Time, run by Ofri Weintraub, who was also behind the connection between designer Shahar Avnet and Beyoncé.
“The magazine showcases and promotes young Israeli designers and has become an international platform the entire global industry follows,” Barka said. “I met Ofri, who is the ultimate kibbutznik from northern Israel, when she came to give a lecture at Shenkar. I approached her afterward and a love story began. When Christina’s stylist told her he was looking for designers for this project, she recommended me. International stylists know her and are in touch with her. Even the artists themselves consult her about who to wear and who to meet. If I hadn’t known from her that they reached out and that she recommended me, I would have been sure someone was playing a prank on me.”
'It wasn’t a project where imagination could run wild. It was a personal design created for a specific woman. It required me to think about functionality, movement on stage and comfort, and to answer very specific questions, such as which hand she holds the microphone in.'
Barka speaks rapidly, words tumbling out as if trying to contain the excitement that overwhelmed her. “Once I realized it was real, I called my family straight from the wedding. I told my partner we were pulling an all-nighter and that I would be sketching all night. I got home and started researching every dress she had ever worn.”
How do you even do research like that?
“I come from a very practical, academic background. My entire family are lawyers, and I really love research,” she said. “I designed 20 looks for them within 24 hours. I didn’t sleep. I was fresh out of Shenkar, a month after my graduation show, so that muscle was still very strong. Shenkar teaches us to work extremely hard. We have a work ethic and know how to function under pressure. Even in my personal projects, I can sit for three days until I crack it. Here too, I looked up every look of hers I could find. I listened to her music while designing and watched her films.”
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'It was a meeting between the iconic pop world and my personal design language.” The dress sketch
(Illustration: Paramount, CBS)
All that in 24 hours?
“Yes, but I have attention deficit disorder. When I prepared a collection for one of my Shenkar projects, I watched all the seasons of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ at the same time,” she said with a laugh. “Here too, I lived Aguilera for 24 hours. In the end, I chose to create an homage to a look from the iconic film ‘Burlesque,’ which she starred in in the early 2000s with Cher and which is now making a very trendy comeback. There’s a green dress she wore, and I gave it a twist with sculpted leather, which is the material that comes most naturally to me.”
What if she had refused to wear leather?
“Her stylist actually told me that leather wasn’t very Christmas-like, but I said to him, ‘You’ll see, she will fall for the dress. I’ll make it work.’”
And she did. He was convinced, and Barka flew to Paris to dress Aguilera herself.
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'There was no need for alterations.' Christina Aguilera wearing a dress by Barka
(Photo: screenshot from the special, Paramount, CBS)
“When I’m given just 24 hours, I want to do something on my home turf, in the area that feels most comfortable to me, and for me that’s leather,” she explained. “The project came to me about a month after my graduation show, which also featured leather designs, so it felt like a direct continuation of what I had already done. But this time there was a fundamental difference. This wasn’t a project where imagination could run wild. It was a personal garment, designed for a specific woman. It required thinking differently, not just about concept and idea, but also about functionality, movement on stage and comfort.”
She had to consider practical questions as well. “Which hand does she hold the microphone in? What feels right or wrong during a performance? Working with Christina Aguilera was a particularly meaningful moment for me, a meeting point between iconic pop culture and my personal design language.”
All of those questions were relayed to the star’s team, who answered in detail and asked her to send the dress once it was ready. That, however, was not an option.
“I absolutely refused to send the dress in a suitcase,” she said. “I took it onto the plane with me. It was inside a garment bag and we hung it in the closet.”
Weren’t you afraid of forgetting it in the closet after the flight?
“Forgetting it? Absolutely not,” she said. “From the airport I went straight to fittings at her hotel in Paris. She tried it on and wow, it fit her perfectly. Her personal tailor was there, already prepared to make alterations, but when he saw her in the dress he said there were no adjustments needed at all.”
'The look was one of the film’s most widely shared moments and appeared on countless fan pages. Everyone wrote that it felt like the beginning of a new era for Christina, with a nod to her past.'
She paused to take a breath. “Thank God they gave me her real measurements. Sometimes the measurements sent are a bit too flattering,” she laughed. “They gave me her measurements down to the size of her fingers, and it was spot on.”
What did you feel when you saw Christina Aguilera wearing your design?
“Massive relief.”
What was she like?
“Super nice and super sweet. They were supposed to do all the fittings in Los Angeles, but in the end everything happened in Paris, so it was very rushed because filming began the next day. We had just a few minutes for fittings before moving on to the next look. The shoot lasted a week. They shut down the Eiffel Tower and the surrounding area for seven nights and filmed every night.”
In the days leading up to Christmas, the film exploded across social media. Barka described sitting at home in Tel Aviv with her partner. “I was scrolling through TikTok and suddenly saw videos of my dress everywhere. It was insane. The look was one of the most prominent moments in the film and appeared on countless fan pages. The reactions were incredible. People wrote that it looked like the beginning of a new era for Christina, with a nod to her past.
“After the project ended, the stylist also shared the look as one of his favorites in the film, even compared to designs by veteran, well-known designers. I received amazing feedback. They told me she loved the dress, and it’s very possible you’ll see more collaborations between us in the future.”
What did your classmates and mentors say?
“My mentor, Yossi Katzav, is the most supportive person in the world. He was there for me and was incredibly happy. Shenkar was very supportive too. My friends were thrilled for me. My friend from school, Shay Greenberg, helped me execute the piece. She’s an incredible tailor and designer, and we worked on the sewing and construction together. I couldn’t have done it without her, because they gave me the measurements only a week before I flew. Another friend who helped is Alex Zak, the only person I trust with leather sculpting.”
‘I let life surprise me’
These days, the much-talked-about dress will be on display at a new fashion exhibition titled ‘Emerging into the light: fashion!’ opening in Israel for the first time. The exhibition, at Beit Klang in Ashdod starting January 8, presents the next generation of fashion designers from leading Israeli academies.
The exhibition is a collaboration between the Ashdod Municipal Company for Culture and Leisure and Portfolio magazine. It will feature designs by recent graduates displayed on mannequins, sketches on the walls, video documentation of graduation shows and a special accessories display. Beit Klang, Ashdod’s artists’ house, provides a platform for emerging creators alongside established artists. The collaboration with Portfolio magazine, which marked its 20th anniversary this year, was born from a shared vision to spotlight the moment when young designers step out of academia and into the professional world, just like Barka.
After getting approval from Christina Aguilera, what comes next?
“I’m now working as a freelance designer and have exciting projects in the pipeline, collaborations with brands in Israel and artists abroad that I can’t yet reveal, just like I couldn’t talk about Christina for months,” she said. “I hope to build something of my own. The Aguilera project and my Shenkar graduation project really took off, so I’ve received invitations to showrooms abroad and fashion weeks. I didn’t think this would happen. I’m a very structured person.”
Structured?
“I need to plan and know what I’ll be doing in five years. But right now, I’m letting life surprise me.”
New York internship during the war
Barka completed her internship in New York. She was accepted into an internship at the Altuzarra fashion house a year after the war began and worked there under the leadership of an Israeli CEO alongside designers from around the world, including from countries not exactly friendly to Israel.
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Aguilera with Cher at the premiere of “Burlesque”
(Photo: Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
“It wasn’t easy being there during the war and hearing what was happening in Israel from afar,” she said. “Everyone usually sits together for lunch and talks about everything, and often things happening back home came up. There was an Iranian designer there, and we managed to find a common language and the conversations were pleasant, but it wasn’t simple to sit there eating lunch and hear that a missile had just exploded a meter from your home while everyone else is talking about Tinder.”
“Emerging into the light: fashion!”, Beit Klang, 2 Yair Street, Ashdod. Tel. 08-9221883. Sunday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Free admission.
First published: 12:19, 01.02.26