Posts tagged ‘disney’
why do brides say ‘I Do’ to the strapless meringue?
In the regional press round my way there have been a lot of fashion spreads recently about choosing the perfect wedding dress. I’m not target audience, but it struck me that 80% of these dresses seem to fall into the ‘strapless meringue’ category.
I’ve been wondering why otherwise sane and stylish women decide that this is the way to go for the most important (and probably most expensive) dress they will ever wear.
I suppose it all must hark back to 1947 and Dior’s New Look where, post rationing, the ultimate in luxury was to have a dress made of as much fabric as you could manage.
image from Metropolitan Museum of Art
Disney probably has a lot to answer for too. In 1950 it brought out Cinderella, who went to the ball in a light blue, cap sleeved, Dior New Look style meringue.
She was followed by a parade of Disney Princesses, including Sleeping Beauty (1959, pink meringue), Belle from Beauty and the Beast (1991, yellow meringue) and Tiana from last year’s The Princess and the Frog (green strapless meringue).
I’m hypothesising that many girls have an idea in their head about the perfect wedding dress from about age four and this must be heavily influenced by the output of Disney. If your wedding is all about being a princess for a day, why not dress like one?
PS just found a great piece in yesterday’s Guardian on the same subject
when I grow up, I want to be a Disney princess
I’m loving the Disney campaign ‘year of a million dreams’.
It’s every little (and not so little) girl’s fantasy to be a Disney princess or to swept off her feet by a handsome prince. If nothing else this campaign reminds all the thirty something yummy mummies and daddies out there (who will see the campaign in Vanity Fair, GQ, Vogue, The New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveller, Glamour etc) just what Disney meant to them and what it should mean to their children.
God knows how much the whole thing cost (6 page inserts in Vogue et al don’t come cheap and neither does hiring Beyonce, Beckham and Scarlett Johansson), but I suppose the PR payback more than covers it off.
The fantastic Annie Leibovitz shots inject an amazing combination of gravitas, glamour and even innocence to what has to be one of the biggest brands of the twentieth century.
happy music and cash cows
I have a little secret. I love cheesy musicals. For sing-along-in-the-car, perk-up-your-day results, you can’t beat a bit a few upbeat, cheesetastic tunes.
Theres a wealth of excellent musical material out there on stage, film and DVD at the ‘mo, from Hairspray and Dreamgirls to the wicked Avenue Q. I’m even off to see Starlight Express on tour this week – but that is purely on the grounds of a nostalgia trip, Starlight being my 1980’s junior school equivalent of Disney’s cash cow High School Musical.
Actually, has anyone else noticed just how efficiently Disney is milking the High School Musical phenomenon? Not only is every song perfectly pitched in the musical range of 12 year old girls so that they can sing along to the DVD, but there’s the sequel, the soundtrack, the stadium tour, the novel, the video game, the stage show, the ice show tour…
My ipod is a High School Musical free-zone (you have to draw the line somewhere), but surely that’s what they invented itunes for – the purchase of guilty musical pleasures…
