Link: http://kairongku.com/reflection-journey/

Long flowing hair, ravishing beauty, willowy figure. Princess or poor cottage maiden, the Prince Charming fall head over heels with her. Pronouncing at first sight that they'd be married as soon as possible and live happily ever after. In a nutshell, that's a fairy tale.

Princess in the real world; commoners look up to, media and paparazzi track them down, girls idolise for her barbie-doll looks and way of living. But life is all about the royal family, sovereign, patronages, ceremonies, charities, and duties.

This journey, this adventure, this tale, we experience for ourselves, is not just a means to find out who she is; it is an expression of the narrow confines of political life. Putting us in the role of a Princess, looking at the choices she can make, and the reasons behind them, we see ourselves reflected just as surely as if a Princess stood before a mirror.

Welcome! The Reflection Journey of a Princess begins here.

As I was doing the swatches, I realised that there are various colours that can be related to Princess. For instance, pastels colours, pink is more sweet and for fairytale or kids (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7817496.stm); gold, yellow, purple symbolises royalty; black can represents those gothic cosplay and spoilt-brats.

Colour is definately symbolic: a positive colour for you might be negative for me. Since colours have a different meaning in every culture, it is a good metaphor for Princess, where there's various interpretations of its meaning. Princess can be someone who is respectable/ sweet-looking/ classy/ naughty, spoilt girl / and more.

With the experiment I did with coloured transparencies, where I overlapped different colours together to form more colours, I thought of printing words that describes Princess with different colours on transparencies and overlaying them to create a new depiction of Princess using the language of colours. (http://colour-emotion.co.uk/whats.html)

Also I read some articles about some Princesses who are actually among us. I was thinking of filming people on the streets or events, and overlay them with different colours, hence using colour semantics to portray emotions and how everyone perceives Princess differently. Seeing the film, the audience can decide who is the Princess and if Princess can be one of us.

Ms. Yamamoto is a hime gyaru, or princess girl, a growing new tribe of Japanese women who aim to look like sugarcoated, 21st-century versions of old-style European royalty. They idolize Marie Antoinette and Paris Hilton, for her baby-doll looks and princess lifestyle. They speak in soft, chirpy voices and flock to specialized boutiques with names like Jesus Diamante, which looks like a bedroom in a European chateau. There, some hime girls spend more than $1,000 for an outfit including a satin dress, parasol and rhinestone-studded handbag.

Read article here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122713804938242481.html?mod=rss_Lifestyle#

The real world and fairytale collides?

In today’s term, Princess in the real world and in fairytale has kind of merged into a single entity. Regardless of appearance, costumes, roles, or lifestyle, they become a subset of each other. We now live in a contemporary world where things are no longer defined clearly. What is black and what is white.

How about a fusion of real-life Princess with fairytale Princess? The emphasis will be on what is important to us - the general impression of Princess. Besides this, the history or rather stories of Princess is also what people should know.

With this fusional concept, what comes to my mind is an illustration book. How about telling stories or archiving information about Princess in the essence of fairytale books. Like all the myths and folklores, the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth.

Will the Legend of Princess live on?

There are various definations for Princess, it can be possitive or negative, traditional or modern, real-life or fairytale. It all depends on how one sees it.

The theme itself is feminine, thus targeting mainly on female audiences. By using elements that females can relate, to create interest in the topic. An approach of adapting paper dolls into the concept of how people have different (changing) perspective of Princess.

Fabric will be used in replaced of paper, since costumes are made of fabric and why not “archived” the type of textile material used for Princess costumes. Also targets on the emotional aspect, inwhich people uses their sense of touch.

In the spirit of a time capsule, textile is one of the material that can lasts. Since hundreds years ago, fabric was invented and how the exchange of luxury textiles was predominant on the Silk Road, a series of ancient trade and cultural transmission routes that were central to cultural interaction through regions of the Asian continent connecting East and West by linking traders, merchants, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads and urban dwellers from China to the Mediterranean Sea during various periods of time. This shows the “sustainability” of textile material, thus probably thousands years later, people might still be interested in fabrics and the texture.

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Swatches can be texture-based: e.g. fabric

It should be a communication piece, which requires to include text and descriptions.
Probably I should focus abit more on the content.