Fairytale Adverts

So Marks and Spencers have a new Christmas advert out featuring Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, David Gandy and Helena Bonham Carter. It starts Rosie as a woman who goes on an adventure down a sewer hole in pursuit of her dog only to wind up at the Mad Hatter's tea party before she is chased by a wolf to a gingerbread house only to wind up on a magic carpet ride and then along the yellow brick road where she meets a familiar wizard before she returns to normality and has her dog returned to her. A combination of Alice in Wonderland, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Aladdin and The Wizard of Oz it's a wonderful, cute and magical advert for Christmas which reminds of an earlier advert M&S did in 2003.

A lower budget advert and shorter it features Patrick Stewart narrating a fairytale starring Emma Bunton as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, Zoe Wanamaker as the evil queen from Snow White, Will Young as the not so heroic prince and June Sarpong as Red Riding Hood.

Not to be outdone Baileys have offered up a treat with a reimagined version of The Nutcracker for their advert starring talented Royal Ballet dancers- Steven McRae, Thiago Soares and Iana Salenko as the Nutcracker, the Mouse King and Clara. Featuring three women beautifully dressed for a night out at a funky bar, one of them, Clara, joins with the Nutcracker in a dance only for the Mouse King to rudely interfere but Clara can more than hold her own as she proves in this wonderfully choreographed advert, choreographed by Benjamin Millepied who worked on Black Swan.

It mixes magic with boho and beauty with punk as the women wander from the snowy woods following a trail of light to bar, which doors mimic the woods on the inside suggesting this bar's ethereal quality. As they step away from the trees and final piles of snow gathered at the doors they are greeted by an unusually almost gothically styled woman who seems to glide, she offers them their drinks as they stand in an area almost like a warehouse with bare white walls, a black floor and chandeliers. Stepping further into the bar they find it crowded but not so much that the Nutcracker cannot see Clara. The Mouse King notices her too as he is alerted to her from his perch high up on a balcony with the bar's name spelt out behind him in lights- Candyland.

A dance-off between the Mouse King and the Nutcracker follows before Clara ends it with a well placed kick. Clara then returns to her friend and Baileys tells us to 'Spend Time With The Girls This Christmas'

Red Riding Hood Media

Origins of Red Riding Hood- This story seems to be in the news a good bit lately, that Red Riding Hood's origins could be as old as the 1st century BC and that the original story seems to be The Wolf and the Kids, which is still popularly told today. The Wolf and the Kids features a wolf disgusing himself as a mother goat and then eating her young. In the Grimms version of this tale the goats are saved by the mother who rescues them from the sleeping wolf by cutting open his belly, she then places rocks in there and sews it up and the wolf later drowns from the weight of the rocks.

It's no surprise that there are so many versions of fairy tales all over the world, 58 of LRRH apparently. Initially told as adult tales of warning they spread through word of mouth gaining new variations much like 'Chinese whispers'. As with today's authors everyone wants to have something new and exciting to the tale to lure in a bigger audience and to not bore people by simply retelling a commonly known tale.

Chanel No.5- Since it's approaching Christmas and the Xmas adverts are already out (Marks and Spencers have done a wonderful Alice in Wonderland/Wizard of Oz one and John Lewis has a popular animated feature with a bear and a hare) I couldn't resist linking to Chanel No.5's Red Riding Hood advert featuring model and actress Estella Warren as RRH robbing a vault of perfumes guarded by a lone wolf in Paris. Directed by Luc Besson in 1998. I don't know that it necessarily came out around Xmas but it is snowing in the advert. It's beautiful and whimsical and Red has a lovely costume. There's something magical about it too.

Peter Pan

Peter Pan

So Once Upon A Time's Season 3 has been focused on Neverland where Regina, Rumplestiltskin, Emma, Snow White, Prince Charming and Hook have all been hunting for Henry who was taken to Neverland by Tamara and Greg who were working for a secret boss who claimed to want to destroy magic. As of Season 3 Tamara and Greg are out of the way, their boss it turns out was Pan who doesn't want to destory magic but wants Henry for one sinister reason or another.

The Darling children

Pan was first mentioned in Season 2, Neal/Baelfire ended up with the Darling family in Second Star to the Right, there Wendy talked about a shadow coming for them. Wendy went with the shadow to Neverland only to return distraught, stating that the Lost Boys cried at night for their home, and stating that the shadow would return for her brothers Michael and John. To save them Baelfire allows himself to be captured by the shadow and taken to Neverland, where he is rescued from the ocean by Hook. At first he and Hook get along but their history with Rumplestiltskin leads to their parting and Baelfire ends up on Neverland, until he somehow escaped to become Neal.

So Hook's now gone from bad to somewhat good, apparently out of love for Emma, and Peter Pan is a sadistic villain obssessed with games and turning Henry wicked. He has an omnipresence on the island, showing up to taunt and bargain with Emma and the others as it pleases him but he doesn't do anymore than that. Being able to always watch them you would think he and his Lost Boys could thwart them easily but he seems to enjoy playing with them too much to truly defeat them. The Lost Boys are a bit of an enigma, Wendy mentions how they cry at night for their families and several times we hear them doing this, implying that they are prisoners but one informs Emma they don't want to go home, they choose to stay in Neverland and it certainly seems this way, so what's up with the crying?

Lieutenant and Captain Jones

As for Peter there's obviously more to his history, and there are rumours that he and Rumple may have had a history together. He warned Hook, when he arrived on the island with his brother as Killian Jones that the plant their king had them seeking was not medicinal but poisonous, but doubting this, Killian's brother insisted on testing it and poisoned himself. Peter showed Killian the cure but warned of a price attached, so Killian's brother was cured but as they found out with fatal consequences, he could not leave the island. Losing his brother due to the treachery of their king turned the Lieutnant Killian Jones into the pirate Captain Jones, soon to become Hook thanks to Rumple. So, with Killian/Hook Peter was actually good, he gave him and his brother fair warning despite their rude attitude to them, and gave them a cure and warned of the price they would pay for it.

Tinkerbell is also in the show, intially she was a fairy who came across Regina attempting to kill herself, though Regina maintains it was an accident. Tink saves her life and befriends the newly wedded queen and realises she is miserable, determined to make her happy she breaks every fairy rule there is and steals pixie dust to help Regina find her true love. In the end Regina cannot face her destiny and when Tink asks why she didn't go to discover her true love, Regina turns on the fairy. In the end, the Blue Fairy states that she no longer believes in Tink causing her to lose her wings and powers.

Somehow Tinkerbell then ends up on Neverland and after a heated showdown she agrees to help sneak Regina and the others into Peter's camp, stating that Peter trusts her and that's the last we've seen of her so far. How she got to Neverland and why Peter befriended her is yet to be revealed. We know she's a shadow of herself, having a place to sleep in rather than call home, and being furious with the Regina to the point of almost killing her.

In the Disney animated counterpart, 1953's Peter Pan, Peter was a delightful elf like child who seemed to eternally have fun with the Lost Boys, indians, mermaids, pirates and then Wendy, John and Michael. Following along with his book counterpart he had links to his namesake Pan in that he played the panpipes. Tinkerbell, Tiger Lily, Wendy and the mermaids all had a crush on him that he seemed oblivious to, though he did rescue Tiger Lily and received a kiss from her. In the sequel Return to Neverland, Peter rescues Wendy's daughter Jane from Hook and makes her a honourary Lost Girl before she returns to her family.

Peter Pan first appeared as a week old baby who cavorted with fairies in Kensington Gardens, in a section of J.M Barrie's adult novel The Little White Bird, in it his companion was Maimie Mannering, a four-year-old who got stuck in the gardens after the fairies changed the clock and the gardens were locked early.

After the popularity of Barrie's follow-up play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, in 1904 the section featuring Peter in The Little White Bird was extracted and adapted as the children's novel Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, released in 1906. It explains how Peter was part bird like all infants and escaped from his home by flying after hearing his parents discussing his adult life. He fled to Kensington Gardens where a crow informs him he is not a bird anymore but a human causing him to lose his ability to fly and become stranded in the gardens. He plays the panpipes for the fairies and their queen, Mab, grants his wish to return home but then he wants to return to the fairies and ends up staying too long with them. Returning home a second time, Peter finds his mother has given birth to a second child.

Peter stays in the gardens and befriends the four-year-old Maimie and later wishes to marry her. Realising that her mother must miss her, Maimie instead returns home but she does not forget Peter and gives him presents and letters, including an imaginary goat for him to ride.

The parallels between Peter and the god Pan are obvious with the panpipes, the imaginary goat he rides (Pan considered a half-goat, half-man god), the implied immortality and the rustic, wildlike playful nature. The myth and magic of the fairies is clear here too with them having midnight parties and time being slowed in their world (Peter is unaging but time has passed for his mother who has had another baby in his absence).

Peter Pan or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a 1904 play and later a 1911 novel also known as Peter Pan and Wendy was not so much a sequel to The Little White Bird as a new adaptation featuring Peter Pan as an immortal boy rather than an immortal baby, this time living in Neverland opposed to Kensington Gardens.

This story was born from stories J.M Barrie told the Llewelyn Davies boys, the five sons of Sylvia and Arthur Llewelyn Davies- George, John "Jack", Peter, Michael and Nicholas "Nico". Barrie had previously met the boys in Kensington Gardens before meeting their mother at a dinner party, they became close but never married though Sylvia's husband Arthur died and Barrie divorced. Sylvia died of cancer leaving Barrie as the boys' guardian. The death of Barrie's brother David at fourteen in a skating accident may have also inspired the story, as it might have given him the idea of a boy being a boy forever.

The book ends with Wendy, John and Michael returning to their parents with The Lost Boys and their mother adopting the Lost Boys. Their mother also offers to adopt Peter but he refuses out of fear of being made into a man. An Afterthought, added to the play and novel by Barrie has Peter returning to find Wendy grown up and married, he then takes her daughter Jane to Neverland and then Jane's daughter Margaret and Barrie states that this cycle will continue as long as children are "innocent and heartless".

The 2003 film version starred Jeremy Sumpter as Peter Pan and was largely faithful to the novel.

1991's Hook starred Robin Williams as Peter and Dustin Hoffman as Hook and let us find out what would happen if Peter chose to grow up. Peter, after Wendy grew up soon tired of immortality when he fell in love with her granddaughter Moira. He ended up growing up, marrying Moira and having a daughter, Jack, and a daughter, Maggie. When he travels with his family from America to England to visit Wendy, who helped Peter and other orphans find a family, his children are kidnapped by Hook, who Peter has forgotten.

Peter, with help from Tinkerbell, journeys back to Neverland to rescue his children but Jack is disillusioned with him and looks to Hook as a father figure, and Peter himself no longer remembers how to use his imagination or fly. With help from Tinkerbell and the Lost Boys he remembers how to be Peter Pan again instead of Peter Banning and is able to save his children and return home. A somewhat Americanised version of Peter Pan directed by Stephen Spielberg it focused on Tinkerbell's unrequited feelings for Peter and explained how Tink found him as a baby in a pram when he rolled away from his mother, escaping adulthood.

1990-1991 gave us the cartoon series Peter Pan and the Pirates with Jason Marsden voicing Peter and Tim Curry voicing Captain Hook. In this cartoon the pirates got a lot more development and all of the crew had their own names and personality traits. Peter was very childlike in this- stubborn, forgetful and cocky he did not learn from his mistakes but he was also brave, loyal and fun loving. With 65 episodes this cartoon had a decent success, it was an Americanised, darker version of the tale, giving us a complex and developed Captain Hook.

In 2011 the miniseries Neverland was released, a prequel explaining the origins of Peter, the Lost Boys and Captain Hook and detailing how they ended up in Neverland. Peter was a thief in London working under fencer James "Jimmy" Hook. Stealing an orb, Jimmy and the thieves are transported by it to Neverland where they are captured by pirates led by Captain Elizabeth Bonny. Peter comes after the thieves later through the orb and meets the Indians. This version had Bob Hoskins returning as the pirate Smee, a role he also played in the 1991 film Hook. The show ends with a Lost Boy telling Peter that he has lost his shadow, hinting at the beginning of Peter and Wendy's adventures.

In novels, Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean is the official sequel and features a grown up Wendy and John Darling and the Lost Boys, now known as the Old Boys, returning to Neverland to  help Peter when they are plagued by vivid dreams of Neverland. In the novel Peter goes from indifferent to almost villainous due to another's mechanisms. The unofficial prequel series- The Starcatchers (currently five in number). It features orphans Peter and Molly trying to keep a treasure safe from pirates and thieves. They find a group of boys called The Lost Boys on an island known as Mollusk Island, later renamed Neverland. The treasure they are trying to keep safe is known as starstuff.

Zenescope's Neverland comic series, like Once Upon A Time, gives us a Peter Pan who is a villain and Hook as a pirate captain who would be a hero. Johnathon Cross is the hero, kidnapped by Pan as a boy and taken to Neverland, he escaped but abandoned his younger brother in the process, now he is returning to Neverland to save John and Michael, Wendy's nephews. Like Hook he has a hook for a hand, his hand having been taken by a crocodile.

Halloween- Sleepy Hollow

Well Halloween is once again almost here! I've already attended a house party, again as a Jurassic Park Ranger only this time my boyfriend joined me as one too. Browsing the net I came across this collection of wonderful links showing pictures of Halloween themed houses and parties with ideas for outdoors and indoors, ranging from flamboyent to subtle, steampunk to all whites and more- http://www.digsdigs.com/90-cool-outdoor-halloween-decorating-ideas/ for anyone looking for ideas to decorate their house this a must see!

I've also been continuing to watch Sleepy Hollow, perfect for Halloween! There's just something about this show that despite it's flaws just gets it so right for me. It's a combination of Buffy and Supernatural with a healthy dose of Sherlock/Elementary, with detective Abbie Mills and fish out of water Ichabod Crane, a highly intelligent man with wonderful witticisms and an outlook on life that seems odd in our time, trying to prevent the Apocalypse whilst battling horsemen, witches, sandmen, devil worshippers, demons and more.

This show has a fantastic cast with the promise of more familiar and talented actors and actresses joining it. Abbie and Ichabod are wonderful leads and the chemistry between them is very believable. Ichabod is cute, funny and smart, Abbie is tough and no nonsense but she's sympathetic to Ichabod's plight and willing to help him even if she doesn't believe him. As Abbie learns that the insane is the truth she begins to open up revealing a dark history and her own vulnerabilities and guilt.

My one big qualm with the show so far is the mixing up of the Apocalypse's horses, they manage to have a black horse, a white one, a red one and what looks like a pale one but for some reason Death is on the white rather than the pale and Pestilence/Conquest is on a black horse inexplicably. I can't understand the reasoning behind this error or the fact that they blatantly called Death Conquest in the pilot before correctly naming Pestilence as Conquest. In the Bible it is Conquest who rides out on a white horse but he is never mistaken for Death, Death in fact being the only horseman directly named in the Bible.

Given that this show seems to have done it's reach search and managed to have the four horses matching the colours in the bible it really is puzzling and highly irritating as to why they mixed them up. As horses can only truly be white if they are albino I could understand putting Death on a white (really grey) horse and passing it off as pale but Pestilence/Conquest on a black horse and Famine on a pale horse, why? It just seems like a shoddy error that could so easily have been avoided.

That said, I still love this show and there are plenty more inaccuracies in it than that. I especially loved the latest episode featuring the lost colony of Roanoke!

Once Upon A Time In Wonderland- SPOILERS

Once's new spinoff, whilst Emma and the others are in Neverland Alice is in Wonderland chasing after her lost supposedly dead genie lover. The first episode opened promisingly enough with a young blonde Alice clad in the familiar blue dress running excitedly to her father to tell of her adventures in Wonderland. Her father far from receptive, explains she has been gone so long he thought her dead, now he thinks her mad. Flashforward to the future and Alice is now brunette and in the mad house after going to Wonderland one too many times for her father. After having spent years drifting to Wonderland after the White Rabbit, freeing and falling in love with a genie and then losing him to the Red Queen, Alice now faces a lobotomy as the doctors don't believe she will ever stop being mad. Sounds a bit like American McGee's heroine doesn't it?

We also have a brief scene of action in Storybrooke featuring a cameo from the all but forgotten Ashley and the more memorable Grumpy before the Knave of Hearts come to create mayhem. He's interrupted by the White Rabbit who tells him they must save Alice.

Basically this show opens as a cross between Alice in Wonderland and Aladdin with a lot of poor CGI. It's a story about Alice looking for her love a Genie, she is aided by the Knave of Hearts and the White Rabbit and thwarted by the Red Queen and, unknown to her, Jafar. As far as I can tell it's set during the same time as Once itself, as the Hatter is said to be gone, enjoying life in the real world, presumably by this they mean Jefferson, somewhere in Storybrooke presumably with his daughter. A huge pity given he's easily the most popular character in the Wonderland series and Jefferson himself proved a hit in the Once series. Instead of giving us a new Hatter or even a Hare and a Dormouse, the Hatter's house is sadly empty by since the White Rabbit heard news of the genie from the Dormouse, hopefully we'll see at least one of them soon.

All in all, it's only the first episode so time will tell how this show fares, especially with two other Wonderland shows said to be in the making and thus promising competition. For me I'll keep watching but I'm sure, the heroine is all corsets and lace, torn between being kickass and heartbroken, it's hard to connect with her and to me she's just not Alice. The look is almost there, trying to emulate the lacy Victorian feel of the Burton film, and abandoning the iconic blue dress for a variety of different potential looks, but I don't see any of her looks becoming iconic.

The Red Queen's looks are equally lacklustre, a grave pity when you consider all the glorious and beautiful costumes Regina wears and even the impressive dress her mother Cora received when playing the Queen of Hearts. Bordering on lingere her costumes look too much like Halloween costumes rather than expensive outfits and for all her beauty she lacks Regina's imposing presence. her character is cold through and through and often stiff, she does come across as ruthless, though wooden in some scenes, but she matched Jafar in a decent standoff and has potential as a decent villain.

The White Rabbit is a cute steampunk CGI version, with a questionably loyalty and a nervous disposition, he's faithful to the book and Disney version, skittish but adorable in a way. His gift is creating rabbit holes between Alice's world and Wonderland and possibly other worlds, time will tell.

I have to say more than anything this show reminds of Kingdom Hearts with Disney worlds crossing over, though it's following in the vein of Storybrooke of mixing Disney up with fairytales, myths and popular fictional tales (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Frankenstein, The Little Mermaid etc). Part of me wishes it could just be Wonderland but I suppose that's too simple and been done too many times these days so the creators of Once are trying to give us something new and unpredictable and with Zenescope's dark version being up for a tv series it's got the darkside covered so let's hope Once does the weird.

I also quite love Jafar! Can't help but wonder if Aladdin and Jasmine are going to be thrown into the mix, is the genie their genie? Will we have a White Queen to match the Red following in the vein of Burton's film version? Will there be other worlds and characters to appear? Certainly it's intriguing enough so far to stick with it.

Snow White On Screen

Halloween is coming and to match with my Red On Screen post here is one for Snow White.

Let's start with an obvious one, Disney's original princess, she appeared on screen in 1937, originally appearing in the Grimms' fairytale collection in 1812. Her costume is quaint and colourful and all too common in the costume shops now. There are any amount of versions including the original, deluxe and more risque versions.

This is the Snow White Prestige Adult costume, a pretty good match.

Here is the Super Deluxe Snow White Princess costume. Verging from the cute to the obscene, some follow the Disney version closely whilst others just seem to copy the colours. Some go for stripes or lines down the corset and others add lace, bows and other nice detail, brightening up the original Snow's plainer corset. Some also change the puff sleeves from blue and red to white and red or gold and red.

This is one of the many Snow Princess variations, it's quite cute with a red capulet, choker and short shoulder cuffs rather than attached sleeves. The skirt is shorter but not to the point of being too flashy. Additionally accessories usually include white, knee high socks with red bows or hearts and sparkly red or black shoes. You could also include a cute apple shaped handbag.

This is Snow White's first look when she is a peasant serving in her own castle. It's easy enough to copy with a blue bowed band, a puff sleeved, white gypsy top, a brown corset and a tattered pink/purple skirt with brown clogs. Just go for an Adult Peasant Costume and rough it up a bit.

This is the Old English Peasant Woman costume. Also search Renaissance costumes to find some variations.

In 1984 Faerie Tale Theatre did a version of Snow White starring Elizabeth McGovern as the princess. With the same updo as the Disney princess she wore a much plainer outfit, consisting of a lemon yellow top, pink dress and matching bow.

1987 gave us the short lived Charmings tv show and another Snow White film, this time starring In the Company of Wolves' Sarah Patterson in the title role. More like the Disney costume, this one went for themes of lilac and pink, which matched alternative images of the Disney princess for the 50th anniversary and was similar to the costume Sarah Patterson wore on the cover of the Snow White film.

To do Elizabeth McGovern's costume would be quite simple, a long sleeved, pale yellow top and a simple pink dress or tunic with optional bows or pattern and a matching headband. The Charmings version however is a little trickier, and the closest I can find is this:

Adult Pink Princess Costume. For a more purple version, there is the Adult Tangled costume, which is Disney's Rapunzel costume, but of course that's another princess, but if you want to make it work try a black Snow White styled bob wig, a matching headband and some apple accessories (handbag, purse, earrings, pendant).

This version is available on Amazon.

Sarah Patterson's costumes in the 1987 Cannon film version were simple, including a white top and long, brown peasant skirt and this dress with several layers and gold, swirl details. Her costumes verge from pauper style into princess and bridal style. An alternated Adult Princess or Greek/Greek Goddess costume would be the best option, particularly if you want to imitate the white and gold style, otherwise DIY. Add a petticoat and a capulet to match the look here.

In 1997 Snow White: A Tale of Terror gave us an adult, gothic version of Snow White starring Monica Keena. Lilli Hoffman, a nobleman's daughter had two variants of one costume, her red dress, which she also wore with a furred hat and cloak, and then there was also her mother's white dress and the white dress she wears when she is poisoned by the apple.

To copy the top one hunt for a Renaissance or Royalty themed costume, add a white shirt underneath, and the additional red cloak and hat if you want. Lilli's cloak has a fake fur trim at the top but I think any Red styled cloak would suffice.

This is the Ladies Renaissance Royalty costume, it has a red and gold brocade detail like Lilli's. There are many versions of Renaissance costumes and quite a few of them do come in red, and red and gold so take or your pic or DIY with a long sleeved, maroon velvet dress with a white shirt underneath, some gold lace on the front if possible, a red cloak and a floppy hat.

For the white dress any white dress can do, Lilli's is long and fancy but not too detailed, her mother's is fitted with a trim of fake white fur along the chest whilst her apple is dress is quite loose and puffy with big sleeves.

In 2000's The 10th Kingdom Snow White is dead or undead rather and portrayed by Camryn Manheim when speaking and Emma Willis when frozen. She is the late grandmother of Prince Wendell White and acts as a guide to Virgina, granting her wishes to help her out.
Her outfit is a vague princess styled one, plain and bordering more on peasant like, it has the classic long, flowing sleeves and skirt, white, with a navy, velvet corset like top, from which white ruffles appear at the bust. Her headband is a very pale blue with a bow when she's awake and a bright red when she's frozen.

In 2001 Kristin Kreuk played the princess in Hallmark's Snow White: The Fairest of Them All. Both her costumes follow a red and gold theme. The first is a red tunic with gold flowers on the sleeve below the shoulders and a gold trim down the middle, the edges and at the colour, beneath it is a pale gold under layer, probably a dress that looks like its silk. For accessories she has a fine gold necklace and matching band about her hair of flowers. Her second outfit is similar only this time the tunic is shorter with large gold snowflakes patterning its bottom, a large open colour, thick, pale gold trim at the sleeves and a long, heavy, gold undergarment complete with a darker trim and a criss-cross pattern. To mimic this go for an Adult Renaissance or Royalty look.

This is the Deluxe Adult Maiden Renaissance costume.

Renaissance Queen costume.

In 2011 the series Once Upon A Time arrived on screen giving us a new Disney version of Snow White, who in our world goes by the name Mary Margaret Blanchard, a school teacher who has an affair with the married David Nolan, who was her husband Prince David 'Charming' in the Enchanted Forest. She has many costumes throughout the show, one of her first being her wedding dress, which has a wonderful feathery detail about the bottom skirt. Her outfit in Season 2 seemed to mesh with her bandit costume, giving it a more regal look, the bottom masculine and the top feminine.

Her costume as an outlaw had a long, sleeved, worn, white shirt, a large fur collar, a tight, brown tunic with a large, brown belt at the waist, plain, faded, brown trousers and a long, green, hooded cloak.

This is Fever Sexy Outlaw. I would suggest loosing the hat, adding a pair of trousers a fake fur scarf to imitate Snow's outlaw look. Other alternatives include female's Robin Hood and Outlaw costumes.

For the white dress, try a Bride or Ballerina Costume, this could also work for Lilli's white dress look.

2012 gave us two very different Snow White movies, Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman, featuring Lily Collins and Kristen Stewart in the leading roles. In Mirror Mirror Snow as an array of costumes, for which the film was nominated for an Academy. They were last on screen designs for Eiko Ishioka. The first was the promo dress, which the gorgeous yellow cloak goes over, a typical, colourful princess dress with the tight corset top, puffy sleeves and expanding skirt, the second is colourful with a similar style only its bigger and frillier with a large bow at the back, the second last is Snow's outlaw outfit when she becomes a bandit with the dwarves and the final outfit was part of her swan costume for a fancy dress ball.

The white dress is like the one in Snow White: A Tale of Terror and Once Upon a Time, with a swan theme just like OUaT's Snow's wedding outfit. Go for a yellow hooded cloak over a colourful Princess dress or find a dark Cinderella's dress to replicate one of these, add some frills and bows if you can. For the bandit outfit it's a deep blue gypsy top with a black corset and a long, black peasant skirt.

This film was also nominated for an Academy for Best Costume Designer, the designer being Colleen Atwood. Snow has a few costumes here, first her princess outfit, a worn beggar's version of one including a brown tunic with red slashes in the sleeves and a pale blue, long sleeved dress underneath, worn with brown trousers and boots. Later she seems to wear the pale blue dress only with a heavy, long sleeved, brown coat over it due to the colder temperatures. She has a white dress just like several of the other Snow Whites, only hers is very plain and neither a ballgown nor wedding dress, it is her death dress, the outfit she is laid to rest and resurrected in. Plain and actually ivory or cream rather than white, it looks like it is made of linen with some ruffles at the shoulders and bottom. Famously is her Joan of Arc styled armour and finally her queen's costume, a dark red with gold brocade, a white undergarment and of course her golden crown.

The princess tunic and warrior's outfits you can actually buy official versions of. For the queen's outfit I would try the Renaissance gown suggestion for Lilli Hoffman's gown, or something similar.

Brothers Grimm

It's 150 years today since Jacob Grimm died, the elder of the two brothers by a year he outlived Wilhem by four years. Their first collection of books was Children's and Household Tales (Kinder- und Hausmärchen), published in 1812, the 200th anniversary of this was celebrated last December.

Known for their children's stories that they claimed to have gathered from German folklore though most their origins appears to have been worlwide and popularised in France before Germany, many of their collected tales were just retellings of Charles Perrault's tales. Despite being called Children's Tales initially these folktales or fairytales as they soon became known were considered too sexual for children and so the brothers edited them to remove the sexual content but increased the violent content in them. Here is a link to a list of some of the darker content in these fairytales.

Jacob died at the age of 78 in Berlin, unwedded and still working. Wilhem married Henriette Dorothea Wild, Dortchen, at the age of 39 and with her had four children: Jacob Grimm, Herman Friedrich Grimm, Rudolf Georg Grimm, and Barbara Auguste Luise Pauline Marie. Jacob lived comfortably with his brother, sister-in-law, nephews and niece. Wilhem, ill in life, died in Berlin at the age of 73 from an infection.

Many of their celebrated fairytales had a grain of truth of them, Red Riding Hood could be linked to the real terror of man-eating wolves in France and Snow to the German Countess Maria Sophia Margaretha Catherina von Erthal.