Otherworldly

Tomorrow, May 1st, the new round of Enchantment opens. The format has been changed since previous rounds - instead of shopping at a central location, each of the participating designers will have new, Enchantment-specific releases available in their main stores. Each time you purchase one of the qualifying releases, you receive a stamp card and here’s were the added fun begins. You see, in addition to the main store releases, each designer has also made an Enchantment-specific prize and these are available at a central location. However, you cannot just go and buy these special prizes. This is where the stamp card comes into the picture. For each prize that you want, you will need a stamp card. Once you have all the stamp cards you want, you visit the main store of each designer to stamp the cards (you can wear all of them at once at this stage). When the cards are full, detach them and visit the prize location. There, you attach one card at a time and start claiming the prizes you want.

So now that you know how it works, what about this rounds theme? It is Sleeping Beauty, and for my first post, I decided to dig deep into the fairy-tale’s origins…

The classic Sleeping Beauty lies in a castle overgrown with thorns (we call her Törnrosa in Swedish) after pricking her finger on a spindle and falling into a deep sleep for 100 years. But as with all fairy tales, there are numerous variants to the tale. There are also older, quite different tales which share only some of the key elements but which may very well have served as the inspiration for the fairy tale.

For example, in (some versions) of the tale of Brynhild and Sigurd,  the Valkyrie Brynhild defies Odin’s orders during a battle and allows the wrong man to survive. As a punishment, Odin places her in an enchanted sleep on a mountain top, surrounded by a ring of fire. There she lies until Sigurd is able to jump over the flames on his horse Grane, a song of Odin’s eight-legged steed Sleipnir. From there the story takes a rather more tragic turn than your classic Sleeping Beauty story, but the similarities are plain - the sleeping maiden, the enchantment, the magical obstacles around here and the bold hero.

I built the look of my Brynhild around the Roosje hair from Mina, which is her prize release (as in, you need a filled-out stamp card to claim it). Now that we’ve finally gotten materials to look right, her use of iton the hair comes to its full right—just look at those beautiful highlights. Mina’s in-store release is a companion hair called Roos which I hope to feature soon in another post.

The pose I am using is taken from the Enchantment prize by The Annex, which is a lovely Sleeping Beauty Pose Prop. But for this photo I just needed the pose as Brynhild would be resting on rocks and not a bed of flowers.

My skin is Siobhan from Adam n Eve in the palest tone and with blonde eyebrows. The sleeping look is achieved through the mesh eyelids from Slink. I am wearing the Rainha gown from The Muses in Bone and the spear is from Tekeli-li’s Pohjola set.