There is a story that I'd like to tell... The story of little girls, good princesses waiting for their princes to come to their rescue, and evil queens who try to save themselves. When I was a little girl I was fascinated by it... But growing up I started questioning a few things. What if we got it all wrong? What if we try and re-write the story?
Society is full of stereotypes created by years and years of fairy tales with some sort of socio-psychological meaning behind them; the good Snow White tricked by the evil witch into eating the poisonous apple - to teach children the danger of female narcisism (the fairest of them all) and to give space to a more natural and naive beauty of a graceful damsel who, after eating the poisonous apple, is saved by the kiss of a beautiful prince charming.
And then there's Sleeping Beauty, the beautiful Aurora who, hated by the evil witch, falls into a deep sleep after a fatal sting and is eventually saved, like Snow White, by a beautiful and brave prince charming who, after a few vicissitudes saves the princess, the castle and the people.
We've all felt a bit, like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty during our lives, tricked by evil witches and we've all dreamt of prince charming on the white steed coming to our rescue. So we waited... and waited... but prince charming never came, thus we understood that there's just a lot of confusion around.
Princesses who, tired of waiting and being genuine and naive, became angry and frustrated... and princes who had no intention to face a thousand vicissitudes to conquer a "naive" princess with unachievable expectations. Basically, we created a big mess.
We thought we were creating a beautiful and romantic world, but instead we've been left with a "noir" where princes, instead of being brave and facing the dragon and the evil witch, opt for killing the princess so that the story can end early.
But this is not what I want to talk about... I want to talk about women who no longer wait for prince charming to come to the rescue, but instead become brave and magically become "Regine" (Queens), Let's abandon the stereotype of the fragile princess who needs prince charming to come to her rescue, and let's embrace a new notion of brave women who are able to fend for themselves with strength and determination.
Fairy tales made us dream of an unac
hievable world full of unrealistic stories and characters. We can no longer let Snow White or Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty influence our lives. Let's look instead at the strong and corageous Queens of history who changed the faith of nations by taking brave decisions and facing the consequences.
There have been hundreds of strong "Queens" in history... I've chosen 8 of them to create my Fashion Show "Regine"... a journey through the history of 8 strong women who demonstrated that following stereotypes is not the way to "success".
Isabella I of Castile
Catherine of Russia
Marie Antoniette
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Elizabeth I
Catherine De' Medici
Artemisia I of Caria
Cartimandua Queen of the Brigantes