Your Fantasy Costume Articles
Gobbolino: For the emo, punk and urban cyber fairy
Above: Jack sparrow inspired pirate hat
Gobbolino is a store that specializes urban faerywear . I first discovered this store because it was featured in the same issue of the british magazine FAE MAGAZINE which I was the girl cover. That number of the magazine had also a collection of beautiful pictures and then took note of it.
striped socks (bee model) don't we all love striped socks?... I do
From big furry boot covers for animal-like costumes, beautiful hand custom fairy wings, skirts and head garlands. The store has also a weird and unusual collection and ever growing catalogue of legwarmers, cute animal ear hats and sexy lolita lace mini skirts . The store first appeared in the famous Camden Town, London and quickly became available to buy in individual clubwear and alternative shops around the UK and abroad. Heavily influenced by the street wear of the Haruko girls of Japan with their original and inspiring handmade garments. Mixing alternative sterotypes without prejudice the store cannot be easily placed in one single style but a wealth of them from Gothic, Emo, Punk, Indie, Decora, jrock, Scene kids, Nu rave, Gothic Lolita's to cosplay Cyber Kittens
Gobbolino sales a really WEIRD and awesome collection of items, from bunny and bear hats to pouches and bags as unusual as cool. I felt in love with this one... isn't it just cute? This is a goblin bag... so clever! Awww
Above: goblin bag (CUTE!==)
Above: brown blonde wool with blonde dreads
Long hair falls are joined to elastic hair bands for easy attachment to your own hair. The easiest way to transform yourself from your daily style into something more cyber/goth/urban faery like. A touch of tribal too i'd dare to say. These were my favourites, wouldn't mind to wear them one day for fun!
Vaisto: Comfortable tribal faery wear from Finland
Vaisto is a half-Finnish, half-Russian team of professional textile madness, operating from Helsinki, Finland (why is it that I lately find so many cool things around Findland? Is it maybe I'm learning to play myself the kantele and jouhikko finnish instrument?. Featuring a collection of high quality pieces from costumes, dresses, bags and going even into jewelry with a touch of "tribal" and "psychodelic" and even infused with a tiny bit of hippy spirit and other influences like native American and even african VAISTO showcases a modest yet lovely and handmade unique designs.
Vaisto is a collaboration of two, sometimes combining their skills for one item but normally dividing tasks as: Koshka - clothes design, sewing, jewelry, modeling Hanni - crochet, jewelry, photo/edit, shop management In their own words her costumes are "inspired by happy dancing people, impulsive flashes of beauty, midsummer-night forest magic, travelling without destination, spots of a leopard & LoveLoveLove of course.. one-of-a-kind clothes and accessories for the inner spirits wandering in the fields of fluorescent fantasy, right across river from the psychonaut-launchpad to outer mindscapes".
The Enigma-collection combines gorgerous silk jacquards with the softest, high quality viscose jerseys serged for organic curl and spiral. The whole collection has a touch of "tribal". Oh I´d love to have this in mossy green, brown or ivory. I particularly love the ivory white arm warmers.
Above: ivory arm warmers (ohhh I really want these!!) along with the hoodies... sigh!
These are not only for faery wear, aside of highlight your inner pixie (wether urban or forest dweller) it can be used too as casual wear. It offers several colors and possibilities of layering them to make your own and unique looking combinations. Have a look and enjoy! You can visit their official site and also their Etsy store.
Faerieworlds: celebrate the biggest american faery gathering
Celebrating Summer celebration Faerieworlds is one of the biggest and more well known faery gathering events in the United States. Being held in a natural environment of Eugene, Oregon, it has a tribal and almost hippy feeling into it. Featuring a selection of bands and concerts (unfortunately i'm not attending myself as performer or artist this year but I highly recommend it), illustrators, artists and all sorts of vendors as well as a great participation of public all dressed up in their best fantasy garments... Another good event so you can showcase your best looks! Have fun and join your hands in a spiral dance with a wealth of fantasy lovers!
LRP STORE : Costumes, props and weapons for role players
Above: long vampire coat
LRP STORE is the Europe's largest online retail shop dedicated to the world of Costume, Props and Role-Play. From vampires and pirates to viking and medieval and LOTR AND D&D armor, weapons, accessories and more and also proposals of the matching items to make the most common characters you would like to portray if you're used to play live role play, or just for your freak fun self to party or impress with the right haloween prop. And a note from some of our followers that e-mailed me asking for more "stuff for guys and less girlish.."!! ok, ok! got it, here you have some fun! At your command! The really big highlight of the website are the armor (from pieces like rings and D shaped scales for your "make your own", bracers and also complete already to ship sets (leather, chainmail, roman...)
Oh and they have a small collection of accessories which include some lovely Belt pouches... Ohhh I JUST WANT this one! snif!
They an ever changing range of LARP weapons, swords from basic knight blades to rapiers, cutlasses, samurai katana swords and even Orc cleavers,axes, bows, arrows and quivers, pirate pistols and even some steampunk-looking devices. They have stock ready to ship in several styles in multiple lengths as well so you can have a short and long sword to match. Some examples below:
Above: examples of weapons (Left: steampunk vulcane gun ; right: pirate pistol). Below: Axe
LRP store has also a quite big collection of costumes like shirts, coats, lady gowns and cloaks like the following:
If it wasn't enough with all of these, the site includes also a small section of most common used prostetics like elf ears, witches and devil chins, fake noses and so forth as well as a selection of basic make up sets. So even for surfing quite a while and open your mind to new ideas for your fantasy costume, LRP store offer quite a lot of time of entertainment by itself.
Andralys: Medieval and fairy fantasy gowns
If you want to go for a custom made dress, here's a wonderful site that features the works of Andralys: Angelique Stock french costume maker and designer. From medieval to victorian and prerraphaelite (like out of a Waterhouse' painting) and even daring to feature some steampunk inspired models, it showcases some custom and one of a kind works and also post her sketches and ideas for her upcoming projects. You can order too bridal garments and just surf among the selected photographs that will expose the quality and versatility of this garments.
Above: stunning photography, so icy and angelic!
I'm absolutely in love with this fur coat (sigh)
The gown below is so beautiful and yet so dramatic, sometimes a simple pattern and combination of colors can render such striking results!
Fantasy fairy jewelry by Kelly Martinez
Kelly Martinez is a jewelry designer born in England. Her art is infused with Fairy tales, ghostly stories and ancient myths and also showcases her love for Pre-raphaelite, victorian and Art Noveau. In her website you can find some wonderful pieces of art she created casting in wax the designs of her own imagination nourished by her deep love for all things faery inspired. She is also partner to Marc Potts, a very well known fantasy illustrator, the combination of both talents have rendered also a collection of pieces combining Kelly's excellent taste for jewelry making and Potts gorgeous fairy drawings like in the following piece:
The Faerie Wing Shoppe: sparkling fairy wings with lights!!
Above: The faerie wing shopped luna wings model
The Faerie wing shoppe is a company based in UK that manufactures hand-made light weight and realistic fairy wings designed by SarahDuxbury. Yes, in UK, when most of the wing makes are USA based, here's a closer shop for customers in Europe. The wings take around a week to be made and range from iridescent several tones membrane to some gorgeous models with lights. They remind me a little bit to the delicate wings of Kira (from The Dark Crystal movie). You can order with different vein patterns, colors, material and with or without lights. Basic pattern comes strapless so they will look even more realistically attached to your back but if you feel safer with them they can also be added by request. If you have of course any other idea in mind she's open for discussing to make the just the custom perfect wings you have in your head for that special occasion.
Above Lilly wings with Helen Robinson from tpf faerie wear (to be covered in future article) And this is just lovely, some lights added to your wings will make you flow in dim light... just like fairy magic. I absolutely love these... specially that they're just not too colorful... just the right amount of elegance. Looking forward to see them real life as she'll be attending the upcoming 3 Faery wishes festival in UK. I'm making a compilation of items in an article called "glow in the dark" that is coming soon in this blog... so i'll recatch these fabulous items. Stay tuned!
You can also commission other materials and ideas like the following:
Above: Silver and white with clear ab Swarovski crystals and swarovski crystal straps Didn't you just love them? I'm sure you did so check Faerie wing shoppe If still looking for more ideas don't forget to check previous fairy wings articles too: -On Gossamer Wings -Faeries Closet -Enchanted costumes -Art of Wings (branches) -How to make cellophane fairy wings Preparing now... fairy wings of Renae Taylor... coming soon!
The Urban Faery Ball -London-
Summer is getting close, fairies are starting to wear lighter gowns and robes of layered silk... and getting some tanned shoulders and fluttering the raindrops off their fairy wings... So here is one excuse to get your summer fairy garments and enjoy the first Urban Faery Ball held in London, where I'll be performing myself along with american band Woodland (releasing their new album Seasons in Elfland where I also collaborate). I'll also include some of my upcoming album themes in the performance. So if you happen to be in UK 25th of June, only a few days after another festival we're attending taking place also in UK (Cornwall) the 3 faery wishes festival.
Above: Priscilla Hernandez (me) and Kelly Miller López photographed by Susan Schroder.
Camia designs: circlets crowns and tiaras
Above: Ancient leaves neck torc
Above: ivy leaves woodland bracelet
Camias Jewelry Designs is a website that features a collection of circlets, tiaras, fairy crowns, torcs and other jewelry pieces of exclusive design of crafter Kelly Graham, suitable for your lotr costumes, your wedding or your fantasy convention. From Renaissance to Fairytales these inspired pieces are made of good quality sterling silver, copper and fine semi-precious stones carved and handcrafted rendering this lovely collection. There are some matching collections of tiara necklaces and earrings (and even bracelet cuffs) if you want to go for a matching entire set, and also you can purchase them as separated items too
Topsy turvy: whimsical historical hats from Renaissance to Burlesque!
Topsy Turvy design: Costume accesories for film, stage, and play
Above: Elizabethan hat
Zibellini or "Flea Fur" (I confess I had no idea about this historical accessories but the description really caught me, and you do need to know what they are! :) As the web says Zibellinis were a popular accessory item for noble men & ladies (see pic of Queen Elizabeth) during the 15th and 16th centuries. The head and sometimes feet were often decorated with gold filigree and set with jewels. They are known as "flea-furs" for they were believed to attract the fleas away from one's person!
This Marie Antoniette's inspired model t is also offered in Pale Pink, Ivory, Cream & Black. If you are into XVII fashion be sure to check our previous article "Marie Antoinette and other Roccoco fantasies". But the site includes some rare to find models inspired in those years like the following Mob Cap and Masquerade
Above: Victorian Top hat