Fairytale Styling for Reclaim Magazine

 Hello everyone!

I hope your week is going well.  I am feeling super inspired after half term, as I made my second to Paris this year!  This time I went with the children and my parents.  Once I’ve edited my photos I’ll write about what we got up to.

Today I wanted to share with you some images that I took for my Reclaim Magazine feature at the beginning of the year.  This feature was inspired by fairytales, so I took decorative inspiration from some of my favourite childhood stories, and styled four looks based on those narratives.  It was fun to use my imagination and try something little different!

The Princess and the Pea

‘She went into the bedroom, took all the bed clothes off and laid a pea on the bedstead: then she took twenty mattresses and piled them on top of the pea, and then twenty feather beds on top of the mattresses’

As a child I absolute loved the illustrated book I had of this tale, with the beautiful patterned mattresses piled high on a four poster bed.  I made my own Princess bed by piling high my collection of vintage eiderdowns.  They look so delicious all piled up like that.

Little Red Riding Hood

‘So she ran from the path into the wood to look for flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so got deeper and deeper into the wood.’

I was always afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, but I did love the deep red velvet cloak that Red Riding Hood wore, and red apples add another pop of scarlet.  Mix rustic wood with lace and velvet, and forage in hedgerows for nature treasures which can be displayed in glass jars.

The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe

‘And shortly after that they looked into a room that was quite empty except for one big wardrobe; the sort that has a looking-glass in the door.’

I loved styling this look.  the brief for that issue was to include natural wood where possible, so included that element with the wreath and the foraged twigs.

The Wild Swans

‘On the foam-covered sea-weeds, lay eleven white swan feathers, which she gathered up and placed together. Drops of water lay upon them; whether they were dew-drops or tears no one could say’

There’s something so magical about swans don’t you think?  I have a bit of a thing for these vintage planters which I found at a local charity shop a few years ago.  I used an old sequinned dress as the glistening water, and of course fairy lights for extra sparkle.

Use a little imagination, and you too can create a scene straight out of a fairy tale using textiles, colour and texture.  For more fairytale photographs, you can see my Red Riding Hood snow portraits I took with my daughter here.

Which fairytale is your favourite?

Tamsyn x