Fairy Fashion
Fashions From Another Time and Place (Another World?)
This month's video features eight stories from people who believe they encountered a fairy dressed in old-fashioned clothing. This is a common thing in fairy folklore. Whether it’s the green coats and red caps of the trooping fairies or the ragged, centuries-old garments of a solitary hobgoblin, fairies never seem to keep up with modern trends. But I think this is part of their allure.
One of the things that makes fairy folklore so uncanny is the feeling that we’re getting a glimpse into another world, a world that follows its own rules, including its own sense of fashion.
In British folklore, fairies are often described wearing “old country garb” in red, blue, or green, with high-crowned hats. In some stories, they wear shimmering fabrics finer than anything made in the human world. And in others, their clothes appear old, tattered, or strangely mismatched, as if they’re wearing the castoffs of different centuries.
A rich mantle he did wear.
Made of tinsel gossamer;
Beflowered over with a few
Diamond stars of morning dew;
Dyed crimson in a maiden's blush;
Lin'd with humble-bee's soft plush.
His cap was all of ladies' love,
So wondrous light that it would move,
If any humming gnat or fly
Buzz'd the air in passing by.
About his neck a wreath of pearl
Dropt from the eyes of some poor girl,
Pinched, because she had forgot
To leave clean water in the pot.
~ Sir Simeon Steward
This may account for the connection between fairies and ghosts in some cultures. You don’t often hear of a haunted house where the resident spirit is dressed in jeans and a hoodie. It’s almost always someone in Victorian dress or an old military uniform. It seems like fairies and ghosts have the same sense of style.
And yet fairies seem to have a much more unusual and even somewhat combative relationship with clothing than ghosts do. Folklore is full of stories where a fairy helper vanishes the moment they’re given new clothes (you could never get rid of a ghost this way). Brownies, hobs, and other household fairies, for example, will work happily in secret—cleaning, mending, or churning butter—until some well-meaning human leaves out a gift of new clothes for them. The second they find the clothes, they disappear, often never to return. Why? Some say it’s because they find the clothes insulting, a suggestion that the fairies look shabby or poor and need human help to spruce themselves up. Others say it’s because fairies see gifts as a kind of payment, and once they’ve been “paid,” their job is done.
Whatever the reason, it’s clear that clothes hold special significance in the fairy world. So if you ever run into a fairy and feel compelled to compliment their outfit, or give them a gift of a new waistcoat or pair of gloves, be careful, you might accidentally send them away forever!
What do you think? Have you ever noticed this strange fairy fashion trend in folklore, or heard any stories about fairies and their clothes? Let me know in the comments—I’d love to hear your thoughts!
🍄 Featured Artist
This month’s featured fairy artist is me, and my book The Ghosts of Nothing. The fairy characters in my novel certainly have their own fashion sense. One of the characters, a fairy called Jack, I describe as dressed as a parody of a Victorian gentleman. The book is an eerie fairy fantasy inspired by folklore and the sorts of stories I narrate on my channel. If you haven’t picked up a copy and it seems like something you’re interested in, check it out here.
Until next time,
Your Scary Fairy Godmother