She is so L.A.

She still is smoking hot, this silver-haired Barbie -- bye-bye blond streaks, hello salt and pepper -- in a backless Bill Blass ball gown. For a photo shoot with costume designer Greg LaVoi, her short locks are set off just so against the smoldering gray tones of Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles.

“The gray hair against the matte finish of the building against the gold of the gown ... it was just serendipity,” LaVoi says dreamily. “It just worked.”

In his new book, “Barbie Loves L.A.” (Angel City Press), LaVoi celebrates Barbie’s eclat but doesn’t mind taking her down half a notch or so, to make the fashion icon look more like the rest of us.

“We’re all aging, darling,” coos LaVoi, who says he is fortysomething. “If I could have added a few pounds [to her figure], I would have.”

We’ve had Army Barbie, Presidential Candidate Barbie, Paleontologist Barbie, why not AARP Barbie? Stranger things have happened. “Placed head to toe,” Mattel Inc. suggests, “Barbie dolls and family members sold since 1959 would circle the Earth more than seven times.”

LaVoi photographed Barbie at landmarks and other sites in Southern California, including Watts Towers, Pink’s hot dogs and the Azusa Foothill Drive-In theater (in a convertible with Ken, who maintains a respectable distance). He shot her in Ralph Lauren, in a vintage strapless zebra-stripe swimsuit, in a custom-made Pucci gold-and-fuchsia crop top and capris.

The book, which will be published in February, includes a foreword by famed costume designer Bob Mackie and a double-page spread of the Disney Hall shot.

LaVoi, who has been nominated twice for an Emmy for costume design, has worked with Reba McEntire, Andy Griffith and Natalie Cole and is a designer for the ABC series “The D.A.,” which premieres in March.

In pages that pop with happy, nostalgic colors, LaVoi also writes -- in Barbie’s voice -- about her look back at a life in L.A., with accompanying photographs of her younger, still blond days. Barbie admits: “I’ve had some subtle face work done over the years, but then, who hasn’t?”

Before the Disney Hall shoot, LaVoi and a stylist whipped up a salt-and-pepper hair color for Barbie to reflect what he considers her age. Mattel introduced Barbie in 1959 as a teenager -- say 16 -- which makes her 61, LaVoi figures. (The El Segundo-based company signed off on the book’s text and images.)

That made LaVoi think about her hair: “OK, we can make her age gracefully; I love that she has the beehive bubble cut. She’s kind of the Beverly Hills matron, the blue hair, the whole thing.”

LaVoi has had a “love affair” with Barbie since he was a boy in a small farming town in Colorado and caught a glimpse of the “blond goddess.” He began shooting her at places around town on a whim and noticed that she always drew a crowd -- including men and boys.

“She makes people smile,” he says. “It brings us back to when we were kids.... Every single time I shot, people came up and either had a great comment or smiled. They totally got it. That was the best part about shooting this book. Everybody had a connection with her.”

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Book signing

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Where: Brentano’s bookstore, 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., in the Westfield Shoppingtown mall

When: Feb. 14, 1 p.m.

Contact: (310) 785-0204