She Might Be A Faerie: Three Strange and Curious Style Concepts

So, I wrote a few short pieces some years ago as 'style concepts', an idea I picked up.from Gala Darling's blog, and when I came across them recently I couldn't help but laugh - I thought I had put ideas like these aside, but the third one in particular is - well, not far off the mark, if incredibly idealised. (Confession: originally the author of choice in the first vignette was Neil Gaiman, but oh my goodness, Katherine Genet, I want to leap into your books and live there forever.) Although I have updated them a bit for modern me, and do please forgive a bit of artistic licence - at thirty, I'm not precisely a 'girl' any more!

1) Casual Faerie

The idea that sparked 'casual faerie' as a style concept was me trying to combine several of my favourite styles - faerie, boho and a raggedy art-student kind of look vaguely inspired by the character Karou from Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone, all slouch beanies and messy hair - but in a casual, non-overpowering, non-costumey way, as though (to get kinda cheesy about it) a faerie had decided to take a bunch of art classes and needed to blend in a little bit.

Casual faerie is: combat boots with tea dresses, lots of lace, blue and silver, smudged eye make-up and glitter, messy hair (probably blue or green or faded pink), a faraway expression, short nails, torn stockings, mismatched socks, worn boots, chunky scarves, sketchbooks and bitten pencils, ink stained fingers, silver earrings, slip dresses, thrift shop cardigans, muted or dark florals, jewel-coloured velvet, moon jewellery, flushed cheeks and bright eyes, body glitter in strange colours, wilting daisies tucked into braided hair, oversized leather jackets, dungarees, ugly sweaters, strange charms and magpie feathers tucked into your handbag, the smell of books, mismatched textures and layers, silver beads in your hair that glitter like stars.

The casual faerie girl shops in flea markets and thrift stores. She smells of tea leaves, lavender and peppermint. She carries her art supplies in a battered old brown suitcase she picked up for £1.50 in Age Concern. She wears vintage lace bridal gloves with the fingers cut off. She likes to sit outside and drink tea in the moonlight. The bottom of her handbag is coated in glitter and birdseed. An introvert, she talks and laughs with friends in the coffee shop but never seems quite there, as though she has one foot in this world and one in Tir Na Nog.

2) Storybook Girl

She's the one who stumbled into a fairytale and never found her way out.

She's the smell of books, dust and sunlight.

The storybook girl needs comfortable clothes, because there's another world in the back of her wardrobe and there might be lions around the corner and you can't run away from witches if your shoes don't fit.

She's the queen of cable knit, pensive expressions and steaming coffee. There are ink stains on her cuffs and she doesn't read Vogue and she has non-fictional feelings for fictional characters*. She spends her life looking for magic, both inside her books and in the world around her.

The storybook girl doesn't care much about her make-up or nails. Her hair is messy from running through the forest, her cheeks are flushed from the fresh air and she's half-mad from living in the world inside her head. She's scuffed Doc Martens and chunky scarves, mustard and beige, cranberry and cream, moss and autumn rain and fallen leaves. A wildflower wanderess with freckles and a ready laugh.

She likes things cozy and quiet inside and wild on the outside. She lives for a mug of cocoa by the fireside and a howling wind. She dreams of moonlight and mountains, becoming a lighthouse keeper or a mapmaker or a professor of folklore. She slips away from parties to read and look at the stars. She's not a manic pixie creampuff, just intense, bookish, more into Tolkien than Twitter.

She sees the wonder in the everyday. She owns legwarmers, fingerless gloves and a bobble hat. She knows her own mind and doesn't mince her words. She's not minimalist because it looks good on Instagram but because the time it takes to put on jewellery and lipstick is time that could be spent reading or wandering in the fields. She's a nerd and a bird-mad girl, both at once.

The storybook girl is free and wild, unconstrained, unconventional, and quietly, gently feral. Fisherman's jumpers, baggy jeans, men's belts, scruffy boots, undone shoelaces, patched-up backpacks, elbow patches, cat hair on her blazer, the smell of bonfires, road trips, grass stains, muddy Converse, unraveling cuffs, long hair, flannel shirts, vintage sweaters, drunk on fresh air, daydreams, wanderlust and sweet tea.

*I borrowed that from Bookworm Boutique.

3) Untitled

Half-woman, half-faerietale, she is a nomad, slinging cards on roadsides and in taverns all over these isles. She wears earth tones, patterns in rich autumn colours, jewel tones, brocade, paisley and tapestry prints. Crochet and lace, silver or warm copper-coloured jewellery. She smells of coffee and incense, moss and rainwater.

She could be a professor of divination. Big spectacles, a gentle (if not slightly bewildered) demeanor. She has long, soft, flowing hair. She collects Tarot cards. She wears cardigans, crystal jewellery, moon and star symbols. Soft, rosy, golden make-up, or a flash of iridescent teal. She wears gold glitter under her eyes on nights out. She loves witchery, owls, and walks in the moonlight.

She's a writer or an artist, a pencil in her hair, ink on her fingertips. Short nails, messy hair. Her haunts are greenhouses, old, quiet bookstores with that musty vanillin smell, and abandoned places. She might live in a fortune-teller's caravan, or in a houseboat with forty brocade cushions and clove-scented candles, or in a tiny apartment with plants growing on the windowsill. She might serve you in the bookstore with her hair in a messy bun. Sometimes her hair is blue, sometimes brown, sometimes red or blonde or faded green.

She studies folklore. Cable knits, dungarees, midnight-blue velvet, faded jeans, pin-striped waistcoats with worn buttons, jumpers patched at the elbow, long skirts, vintage dresses, silk knickers, harem pants, embroidery and folk prints. Tie-dye socks. Her dressing table is covered in perfumes and scented lotions; oak, frankincense, woodsmoke, amber. Her lip balm tastes like tea. She always has candles burning.

She reads runes. There's a Katherine Genet book in her handbag. She wears an old leather jacket, and takes her coffee milky and sweet. Glitter on her sheets and on her collarbones. She drinks elderflower cider and honey mead. She wears tea dresses with combat boots. With her friends she goes vintage shopping, stargazing, storytelling and wildcrafting, seeking out poky shops in strange towns, drinking espresso Martinis at two a.m..

'She's mad but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire,' - Charles Bukowski.

'She always had that about her, that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far, and thoughts that wander off the edge of the world,' - Joanne Harris.

'Like a magpie, I am a scavenger of shiny things; fairy tales, dead languages; weird folk beliefs; fascinating religions, and more,' - Laini Taylor.

As fun as it was to re-read and resurrect these, I must also admit that this prescriptive approach to dressing isn't me any more - I like to be free to change and let my style remain fluid. Whilst I'm much pickier about my purchases, I don't like to overthink or try to impose rules or labels on myself. I've gotten much more relaxed - a far cry from deliberately trying to style myself in an 'effortless' way. My main takeaway from these concepts is that I didn't trust myself very much at the time - I very much felt that my style needed some kind of limits, or a solid definition, in order to "count". Whereas nowadays I just make sure I love the things in my wardrobe and get dressed in them - I don't really mind that I can't sum up my look in a pithy statement (or perhaps I can: Pippi Longstocking does witchcraft? Rainbow Brite has let herself go a bit? Luna Lovegood goes to Glastonbury? Dai says these are not far from accurate - "if the Pippi Longstocking and Luna Lovegood ones were smashed together in a car crash, that would be you".).