A Modern Snow White by Vogue Italia & Camilla Akran

Another recent find that I missed when it was fresh in September last year (2013) for Vogue Italia, but worth sharing because it's both classic and modern at the same time and a really beautiful way to dress a Snow White figure. More importantly though, if you take a good look, you'll realize the clothes are telling the story.)

Dress on the left: Gah! *swoon*
In the video below, the one on the right has some really interesting insect & rhino details

Apart from just being pretty to look at, I'm including the behind-the-scenes video to show you a lot of the details you miss in the photos, because ! (I'm sure I could find some room in my wardrobe for a few of these...)

You have to check the details of this dress shown in the video...

I really like that they use a unicorn in the decoration details as well (that would be the dress above, by the way). You don't usually see Snow White with unicorn imagery but it makes a lot of sense with regard to the regal innocence she's supposed to have - whether being seven years old or seventeen.

Seems like a sinister accessory on her lips on the left there... is it a ring?
(But then is sticks to her skin in some shots in the video.)
The whole thing tells quite a dark story, ring, brooch, whatever it is.

Here's the lovely, lovely video (which, with these locations, light and more I would have used to make more of a story, but the whole point of this shoot is for the clothes to tell the story - which in the photos, if you really look at them, they actually do. This is one stylist and photographer (Camilla Akran) combination that I think is very successful in not only showing off the clothes so that they appeal (which is usually the main point of fashion) but in telling a unique version of a well-worn tale, especially in fashion circles. Apparently this is much harder to do than you'd think because I rarely get a sense of story so subtly, just via the clothes and styling.

Take a look at the details:

The only odd thing is that this model doesn't really give off a Snow White feel to me. I don't mean necessarily wide-eyed and innocent but she seems... a little jaded. Perhaps, though, this is Snow White after she's been woken and rushed to marriage. If this is what she's supposed to represent, Queen Snow White, then I'm on board with it.

If you'd like to know which designer made which dress, there are a few different ones in there so I suggest checking the Vogue Italia link HERE for the details.

Shh! It's A Maleficent Collection Sneak Peek! (OUAB Gets A Hot Topic/Disney Collaboration Preview)

Yes, I have new horns!*

They are from the lovely people at Hot Topic who I had the privilege of spending time with today (Friday, April 11), previewing their new, limited edition, fashion collection collaboration with Disney, inspired by, you guessed it, Maleficent.

Once Upon A Blog was also invited to interview the design team and so, amid props from the movie (that Disney wouldn't let me photograph for all the usual legal reasons, although I am allowed to describe them... so more on those later), I got to talk fairy tales with people who have designed a modern fashion collection that aims to exude an aura of fairy tales with teeth. Boy did they succeed!

The collection is seriously gorgeous - lots of black on black textures with elegant lines and a dark-magic edge, inspired by Maleficent's costumes and props. (There are a couple of light and pretty Aurora-inspired pieces too.) I can't wait to show you - and I will very soon!

I was able to interview one of the design team (using a camera phone) and will be bringing you that video soon, along with lots of lovely collection pics. I got to talk Sleeping Beauty, the popularity of conflicted fairy tale characters and, of course, the upcoming movie, with the Hot Topic team and will share that with you too. (It's been an exciting day!)

I also get to share with you the exclusive online pre-order date, (APRIL 15!! - Mark your calendars!), which happens about three weeks before it goes into stores, and I'm so very glad I can because, honestly, once images start getting around, I don't think there will be much of the limited edition collection left for the stores.

More on this really soon but I just couldn't wait to share a teensy bit. In the meantime, some of the new Maleficent accessories, along with their in-store classic Maleficent casual wear can be found HERE.

Stay tuned!

*Note: I have not been paid for this endorsement. The horns were given to invited guests as a thank you for taking time to consider helping promote the collection on their own terms and came with the press release kit we received on entering. They also had strawberries, other yummy-looking fruit and iced lemon water but pictures of those aren't nearly as exciting.

The 'Frozen' Hotel You Can Stay In + 'Frozen' Released On Blu-ray & DVD this Week (But No 3D Yet)

I've been meaning for a while now to do a post on the "sudden increasing popularity" of ice castles and particularly of the Hotel de Glace (aka The Ice Hotel) in Quebec City* that created a special Frozen themed suite. This was THE 'livable' structure created from snow and ice that the Frozen team visited but didn't stay the night in as originally planned. (??!! Wha..? Never mind..)

Although I don't have time to write the article I originally planned...

... there's a whole company who, though they've been building ice castles for a while, has now developed a technique very similar to what Elsa does in Frozen, albeit it at a much slower rate, but it can accurately now be described as ice castle growing....

“We’re technically farmers,” Livingood said. “We grow icicles, we handpick them, harvest them, take them out and hand place them around sprinklers, and then we turn on those sprinklers and they grow more.” ...

... it turns out that the Directors of Frozen, Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, recently returned to The Ice Hotel to visit the amazing Frozen themed work done there (and to promote the DVD/Bu-ray release this week - make sure you know what the options are before you buy - not all deals out there are the same content-wise and I haven't seen it in 3D anywhere, so you know that's still coming).

It's this real life application (done in cooperation with Disney but by the local specialists) that I find interesting in terms of people exploring the idea of the story specifically because it's due to this manifestation (The Frozen Suite, The Ice Hotel itself and similar projects) that people have gone back to Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale and thought more about the Snow Queen character, her castle and how Kai might have fared there.

If Disney are going to insist on referring to Hans Christian Andersen's tale as the inspiration in the bold print below-title blurb, it can happen that the marketing will go both ways: the familiarity of The Snow Queen title (kept intact in many foreign interpretations, rather than colloquial-izing it to Frozen like in English) and name-dropping Hans Christian Andersen to make it 'sound' like a real fairy tale to draw in audiences, sometimes means that people will go back to find out what started all the fuss. In this case, the HCA tale, printed variations, theatrical adaptations and art is picking up in popularity again (something that didn't seem to happen anywhere near as much with Tangled and Rapunzel).

Needless to say (but I will anyway) we LIKE this development! *thumbs up*

Here are the two interviews with the movie's directors worth watching for glimpses of the Frozen Suite and a little reality check on the cold factor (yes they're different, despite the similar looking screens here):

For all the work and paper/computer research done, nothing quite compares to experiencing it person - and they STILL didn't stay the night! *eyeroll*

Since researching earlier in the year and seeing the creativity (and engineering expertise) used in snowy areas in Winter every year, I am incomplete awe of what people can create out of snow and ice. We all know about ice sculptures (and how they inconveniently melt at weddings in movies) but there are festivals of ice carving, snow structure building and much, much more that are held and celebrated every year in the coldest countries in the world and many of these things are worthy of any magical Snow Queen. The only difference a real Snow Queen might make is a way to stop them melting in fluctuating weather. It's when you discover these things that you begin to understand more about where those original stories came from, what their real core is, and how much of a triumph of the human heart those tales are. It's interesting watching the filmmakers, who did their best to translate some of those ideas to animation and film (and succeeded) being faced with that large, cold reality of their own imaginations.

That's a story right there. :)

What do you think? Would you stay the night?

*There are Ice Hotels in other chilly places in the world, including Sweden and Switzerland.

Other Theatrical Snow Queen Productions (Pt 3): Sherman Cymru

Next on my theatrical variations of The Snow Queen list this week, is Sherman Cymru's The Snow Queen. I only found one actual production photo and a promo video, but the set designs by Chloe Lamford are just gorgeous!

I like the poster too, by Savage & Gray Design. 

More behind the scenes than anything else on this one but take a look at how lovely these are. Each image and set is like a postcard (I just wish I could find a larger images of each one so I could take a better look):

There's a video promo too, which I would not have known was related had it not been linked. Considering it most definitely IS part of this same production I'm very intrigued:

Sherman Cymru is currently winning awards for his/their unique approach to theater production and I have to say, from the little I can find image-wise for this one, my interest is definitely piqued.

The Snow Queen production elements and images shown here were from 2009 (I think). I will admit I'm a little vague on exactly how this production works. The blurb calls it an "Audio Described Performance", except there were most definitely actors, sets and the whole nine yards of production, so, apart from perhaps using a narrator, I'm a little in the dark as to what this means...

There's much more  - very different - Snow Queen on stage coming your way, so keep checking back... :)

Don't Open the Door To Anyone!

"I am not allowed to let anyone in. The dwarfs have forbidden me to do so."

Note: It's SO VERY HOT HERE! I'm afraid I was out of prescheduled blog posts the past few days to cover for me while I couldn't get to writing but I have lots of fairy tale news to catch up on! Bear with me while I juggle all the crazy and the health-challenges - there will be news a-plenty to read very shortly. In the meantime... 

While I was searching for images to use for the Snow White slideshow/retelling I found this amazing lock I have to share. Note it took SEVEN YEARS to complete. There's that number again.

The lock was made by an German-born, American ironworker (I would say artist), who worked his way into the Arts & Crafts Society of Boston. This was prior to Disney's Snow White (which was 1937) so the combination of German heritage, minus any strongly influential media representations of Snow White makes for a Germanic representation - with an American Arts and Crafts twist.

In the (very) old book Art and Progress Vol 4 (from 1913), the text refers to the lock, stating: "...Koralewsky's great wrought-iron lock, designed to illustrate the fairy tale of "Snow-White and Rose-Red", is one of the features of display of ironwork." Oops. Clearly the lock is Little Snow White, not Snow White and Rose Red, but even the official museum information today has a small print caveat under the information saying that information is constantly being updated on this piece. I'd love to know why it was made (beyond "it was a gift"). Why so intricate, why a fairy tale and why this fairy tale?)

If Snow White had such a metal-worked lock, care of her little guardians, it may have effectively stopped her from lifting that latch... It would certainly stop me in my tracks every time I approached the door! (Though Snow White doesn't actually open the door, doing as she was told, to receive the apple at the last in the Grimm's telling. Instead she reaches through the window. Apparently we'd need a complementary window latch...)

There's very little information available (that my google-fu can find anyway), except for what the museum has posted next to the artifact itself:

(Designed/created by) Frank L. KoralewskyAmerican, born Germany, 1872-1941Lock, 1911Iron with inlays of gold, silver, bronze, and copper on wood base50.8 x 50.8 x 20.3 cm (20 x 20 x 8 in.)"Fkoralewsky" on iron surface; "FK" inlaid in copper
Gift of Mr. Richard T. Crane, 1926.521 

Frank L. Koralewsky served as a traditional ironworker’s apprentice in his native north-German town of Stralsund. After obtaining journeyman status, he worked in various German shops before immigrating to Boston in the mid- 1890s. By 1906 he was a member of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts, specializing in locksmithing and hardware. This extremely intricate lock, which took seven years to complete, exemplifies the early-20th-century taste for sentimental medievalism and represents the pinnacle of the metalworking tradition at the turn of the 20th century. Exhibited at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, where it won a gold medal, the lock illustrates Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s fairy tale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”— Permanent collection label

Here is the handle (which you can see at the top in the straight-on views), depicting a dragon. I'm also curious as to why the artist chose a dragon...

By the way, can you find the seven dwarfs? They're all there but there's a trick to it...*

I believe the lock is currently on display at the Art Institute in Chicago (the last information I could find was posted in December 2012 but it's in the current artifact/information for this museum so I will have to assume this is here it's currently on exhibit).

I found one other carving by Koralewsky (called a "steel carving", though it appears to be wood) from an old museum catalog but apparently this is not on display anywhere. You can see a similar style to the characters and scene. There's no title, no information, other than that it's by Koralewsky and that it has the tags "metal work" and "craftsman". It looks very much like a tale - with a horse and a King and possibly a mouse (see bottom of the tree) as well as some blacksmiths but I don't know what tale it is.

You can see a selection of amazing and intricate locks by various artists HERE, though the Snow White lock by Koralewsky is the only fairy tale themed one. (Other examples of his work can be found HERE.)

Amazing, yes?

*The seventh dwarf is hidden inside the lock. Now wouldn't that make for an interesting twist to the story?

Fairy Tale Chambers by Ontwerpduo

I really like this take on a fairy tale themed room; something practical and functional without feeling like you've stepped into someone's outdated (and too young for the occupant) princess bedroom. 

The design was a private client commission by a company called "Ontwerpduo" and, looking at their portfolio it's clear they like playing with design and taking some out-of-the-box risks without over saturating people in the concepts.  I really like the simple sophistication and nod to the natural as well as the magical.

Here's how it developed (from the website):

Once upon a time we were asked to design a room in an extraordinary house. A 16th century mansion in a beautiful garden with a long history made us feel like we stepped into a fairy tale. No wonder this became the theme for the design. 

For this room we designed 10 pieces all based on different fairy tales, or themes from fairy tales, such as: the secret room, genie in a bottle, princess on the pea, sleeping beauty, etc.

(You must admit, the photo shoot for this is gorgeous!)

Using some of the same ideas but transplanted to a public place, here are some images from their Room 407 design for the Dutch Lloyd hotel in Amsterdam:

Room 407, a monumental room, which we organized with our newest designs. All designs are based on different fairy tales. The ceiling light and the curtains are overgrowing the room, like the roses overgrew the castle in ‘Sleeping Beauty’. You can also find ‘The princess and the pea’, The ghost in the glass’, Little red riding hood’ and ‘The twelve brothers’ in the room.

From the "What It Is, What It Isn't" design set, inspired by Alice in Wonderland (the website even quotes Carroll's text to set the scene). I do believe that the "viewer" actually makes the furniture look "normal". Although this isn't the first set of melted/ warped through-the-looking-glass furniture I've seen it is the first trying to incorporate the back and forth of traveling through the glass and back again. Very interesting ideas:

Objects are how we perceive them to be. Our minds make things what they are and for us this is reality. Think of a branch hanging in the water. We see, with the refraction of light, the branch under the waterline in a different angle. But we know that in reality the shape of this branch is different. We learned how to see the world. 

What if there was an instrument which would change the world into something that we find strange? And better, what if this instrument can also change it back?

I really like the way these people think. They love to play and also have a lot of child-focused designs, meaning the designs are fun for kids but functional and practical (and chic looking) for adults. combining their sense of play with enchantment they dreamed up a lighting system called Light Forest, which you can make grow over walls and ceilings in any way you desire.

Light forest is a wall and ceiling lighting system. The possibilities are unlimited. The design consists out of different parts, which can de connected to the wall and ceiling. Step by step the lighting system will "grow" across the space.

While the photos look slightly industrial you can see how just a little adaption makes for a fantastic addition to a fairy tale chamber. (See bedroom photo above.)

I have to include this tallow candle set for the instant story feel. Such a great combination (and remind me of a number of fairy tales for some reason...)

I recommend also looking through the Garden of Eden indoor/outdoor furniture set photos too.

Original source: HERE and official Ontwerpduo website HERE.