What the Fairies Wore: Sartorial Means and Darkest Villainies

Abstract

While much attention has focused on the fashions of princesses and other fairy-tale heroes, in this chapter Rebecca-Anne C. Do Rozario discusses what the fairies wear. The fairies of the ancien régime are powerful, political figures who direct the business of kings and queens. Their regular attire is regal. Over time, these fairies have been demoted and absorbed into the figure of the storyteller, who, growing steadily older, is arrayed in domestic mob caps or, curiously, pointed black hats. The chapter examines the increasing propensity to credit the wise old women as the fairy tale’s source in light of the sartorial influence of the peasant or working woman upon representations of fairies and storytellers. Gradually, the powerful fairies have been disempowered, even disenfranchised, through their unfashionable garb. However, a few powerful, wicked fairies survived this trend and their chic, black ensembles have made today’s villains sartorially awesome.