In celebration of Greta Gerwig's highly anticipated Barbie movie, HGTV decided to bring Mattel's Barbie Dreamhouse to life with help from some of the network's biggest stars. Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge (which hits HGTV July 16 at 8|7c) features 15 HGTV designers and one celebrated Food Network chef — and, in true HGTV fashion, the project took on a competitive edge.

Of course, what we see on screen is just a fraction of what actually went down to create this blinged-out space. Ahead: super-retro, behind-the-scenes photos from set, taken with Kodak Ektar 100 film stock. “Ektar 100 is my favorite, because its color profile is closest to the natural environment,” says Brock Zych, film photographer and HGTV's digital video producer. “While I was on set for Barbie Dreamhouse, I realized this was the perfect project to capture with film, since the show has such a fun, vibrant and retro vibe.”

Eight teams of two competed in a race against the clock to transform a Southern California home into a real-life Barbie Dreamhouse, one space at a time. The twist: Each team was given a different Barbie Dreamhouse era to keep in mind while designing.

No HGTV competition show is complete without a host, and for Dreamhouse HGTV found the perfect mediator for a Barbie-glam competition: supermodel, designer, author and entrepreneur Ashley Graham. (Pictured with Ashley: the actual hairbrush from the Barbie movie set.)