Fairy Festival 2010, Karnaya Helmet
Our first trip to the May Day Fairy Festival at Spoutwood Farm (2009) tuned us in to a community we hadn’t known of before. It’s a place with lots of crossover – the pagans go, the Rennaisance Faire and the Living History people go, the LARPers, the organic/local food fans, lots of Disney princesses, and even some Steampunks with wings go. It’s a lovely bunch and we’ve enjoyed our two trips up there.
Spoutwood has been going for 20 years but there are new faery festivals, cons and balls springing up in the the US, the UK and elsewhere, part of the growing popularity of role playing and masquerade. There are a couple of nice magazines covering the realm:
Faerie Magazine (MDbased)
Fae Magazine (UK)
So, what do you need to dress as a fairy/fairie/faerie/faery? Well, wings of course.
There are lots of wing making instructions out there. You can do the wire plus nylon stockings kind pretty quick:
Threadbanger
For something more elaborate try this:
From Instructables – these are large, with real feathers and will take a few days to make:
or
This cosplayer shares his method for making giant metallic, robot sort of wings
Some ideas for covering your wings with more unusual materials:
silk leaves or flowers, beads, aluminum cans cut into dragon scales, leather scraps, duct tape, helium balloons,
Check out this lingerie fashion show featuring many and varied wings
If you need some wings to get through a regular day and can’t be accidently knocking stuff over with them, try these
(you could paint your own on a tshirt too). Or for a more permanent set, see these.
Some lovely hand-made wings for sale with the backpack style attachment
For clothes to go with the wings, I love these guys:
Zizzy Fay (UK based) and Reyen Designs (Who we met at Spoutwood!)