Ladies and gentlemen, elves, faeries." The fashion show is about to start. There is glitter everywhere, the faint smell of incense wafting back from a few rows ahead.
"Designers from all over are here! They're some of the finest designers of faerie-wear anywhere in the world," says the show's ringmaster-like emcee.
Suddenly, a coterie of photographers springs up from the wide aisles between the folding chairs: the faerie-razzi.
It's a whirl of velour capes, fur-lined crushed velvet, soy organic-cotton-blends and wings - oh, the wings. Among the show's hits are the debut of a new line that meshes faerie fashion with street style and a kilt for men that causes some women in the audience to let out lecherous whoops. Among the misses is one particularly bubbly model whose catwalk bounces and not-quite-tight-enough corset result in what may be remembered as the great nip slip of FaerieCon 2007. At this, the faerie-razzi go wild.
Ladies and gentlemen, elves, faeries, welcome to the first international faerie convention.
FaerieCon 2007, held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on a recent weekend, billed itself as the world's first international faerie convention, but it's actually the East Coast offshoot of Faerieworlds, an outdoor festival that's been held on the West Coast for the past five years or so. Both events are supposed to represent a time when faerie enthusiasts from around the country can come together to bond over their love of all things fantasy (not to be confused with Atlanta's annual DragonCon, San Diego's annual ComicCon or any number of Star Trek conventions).
Old-fashioned vowel order notwithstanding, everyone knows what a faerie is: a miniature magical creature with wings and pointy ears. Tinkerbell was one. So was Crysta in FernGully. And for reasons unknown, an entire fandom has taken shape around these mythical pixies, spawning countless books, greetings cards, fan magazines, costumes, trinkets and yes, the occasional convention.
The current wave of faerie-mania finds its roots in Faeries, the 1977 book by Brian Froud, who worked on design for the '80s films The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. Froud and his wife, Wendy, a puppeteer who sculpted Star Wars's Yoda and several Dark Crystal characters, are the patron saints and most honored guests of this year's FaerieCon. It probably doesn't hurt that the convention's producer, Robert Gould, is also the Frouds' manager.
Aside from the fashion show and hundreds of vendors, FaerieCon's lineup is stuffed with events: academic-esque lectures on faerie culture, performances by a succession of musical groups that all seem to sound ethereally Enya-like, appearances by faerie celebrity authors and two nighttime masquerade balls.
It may all start to sound a little kooky, but here's the thing: Faerie people are nice. They don't hesitate to yell "I love your wings!" at passersby or ask to snap a picture when they spot someone with a nice costume. They're all about spreading that benevolent faerie spirit. Indeed, there seems to be one woman whose sole task it is to walk around offering free Pixy Stix to convention-goers. And then there's Alexia Anastasio, who's at FaerieCon trying to drum up interest (and funding) for an independent film she hopes to make. "It's a coming-of-age story about college kids that play a live action role-playing game and dress up like faeries," she says of the project, tentatively titled I Believe.
It's sweet, really. But lady, this is Philadelphia.
As one vendor put it, the decision to bring faerie culture here, to a city that's built something of a reputation on rudeness, self-loathing and a high murder rate, was "a big gamble." And judging by the stares the faeries get when they break for lunch at Reading Terminal Market, maybe he was right.
Mitchell Poulouin leans over his subject, a teenage blonde with dainty features. Middle-aged with scraggly shoulder-length hair and a flowy white shirt, Poulouin isn't exactly dressed in costume, but he's embraced a certain Gypsy-like aesthetic.
Poulouin furrows his brows and carefully coats the young woman's right earflap with a layer of adhesive. When it's sufficiently sticky, he'll attach one of the prosthetic "elf maiden" ears she's chosen. Cute and pointy, the style was popularized by Liv Tyler in The Lord of the Rings movies and gives ears an almost almond shape. (They also have "Puck style," "Lord Oberon style" and "Lady Titania style.")
"Elf maiden" ears go for $15, or $25 if you want Poulouin to attach them on the spot. This particular would-be imp decides on the more expensive option. Already dressed in head-to-toe purple and silver faerie-wear, including wings, the ears complete her ensemble. When Poulouin holds a mirror up to her face to show her his finished handiwork, she smiles and scrunches her nose playfully at her reflection. She's visiting FaerieCon with her mom, who tells her newly elf maiden-eared daughter how good she looks before charging the transaction to her credit card.
Poulouin says FaerieCon marks his first foray into prosthetic ears, a new extension of his Delaware-based bodypainting business. "I'm afraid I'm part of it," Poulouin says of what he calls "the faerie scene."
"The faerie scene is a very small niche market. This ties into the fantasy scene," he says. And the fantasy scene ties into special effects makeup, which ties into bodypainting, Poulouin's main vocation. His card features several examples of his work: naked ladies covered in leopard spots, a man in full Darth Maul face paint, nary a wing nor a magic wand in sight.
As visitors approach the booth Poulouin is sharing for the weekend with a jewelry vendor, he drawls, "Were y'all interested in some ears?" as if it's the most normal question in the world. Throughout the weekend, he's affixed some 30 pairs of elf ears to convention-goers, but the number is less than he had hoped for. He's not sure if his booth will break even.
"There's a general discontentment among the vendors," Poulouin says. In his opinion, the event was promoted well to the fantasy community ("They knew to come six months ago," Poulouin says), but not outside of it: few mentions in the Inquirer, Philadelphia Weekly, City Paper. "This should be promoted to the general public," Poulouin says. Aside from the fact that half its attendees are in costume, maybe FaerieCon isn't so different than the average craft fair.
"Even the Bad Faeries Ball last night was very tame," Poulouin adds.
In faerie culture, you are what you wear. Most of the time, only faerie women wear wings, so the men (those that choose to dress up, at least) just end up looking vaguely pirate-y and anachronistic. That or they dress completely normally, in jeans and a t-shirt, and then top it off with horns. An event like FaerieCon becomes a catch-all excuse to trot out any number of strange accessories - wigs, boas, floor-length silver coats - most of which aren't united by a specific time period or theme.
Gypsy Moon clothing designer Candace Savage isn't a fan of costumes. She has a booth at FaerieCon because she collaborated with Wendy Froud on a line of faerie-inspired clothing, but she emphasizes that the designs she does for her Cambridge, Mass.-based store are "not faerie clothes," but high-end couture: think silk, hand stitching and antique Edwardian fabrics.
"I'm more in the fashion industry. I'm here for Wendy [Froud] and the line's barely, barely been introduced," Savage says. "Most people involved in faerie things either make their own clothes or don't want to spend a whole lot of money."
She takes fashion seriously, and she's somewhat disillusioned by FaerieCon. "It's a different world. We have nothing really in common. I don't mean to sound snobby about that, but they make costumes and I don't," she says. "I'll probably never do another [convention] in my life."
About 50 yards away, Jo Ann Palmer mans a jewelry booth. This weekend's convention isn't so different than the Renaissance fairs, motorcycle trade shows and Christmas markets that she works throughout the rest of the year. She's just here to do some business - she confides that she would set up a booth during a prison break if she thought she might be able to move some jewelry.
Palmer doesn't consider herself a member of the fantasy scene, but being an artist, "you're already more accepting of the non-traditional," she says. As for the faerie stuff, "it's all in good fun. I'm more of a free thinker myself."
Billy Bardo, bearded, elfin and playing a medieval-ish instrument called an Irish bouzouki, makes no attempt to disassociate himself from the faerie scene.
"This is what I do for a living. Believe it or not, I go to weird freak festivals and faerie events for a living," he says. A goldsmith by trade, Bardo is one of the owners and operators of Future Relic Studios, which produces historically-inspired metalwork and jewelry, and he's never met a fantasy-Con he didn't like.
"Frankly, I live a life that's pretty rich in myth and history, and so anywhere we see what I call gates or doors to the other worlds, we like to step through [them]. We're compelled to step through [them]," Bardo says.
What would motivate someone to become a goldsmith in the 21st century? "Really, all of it has been inspired to some extent or another by magic, and that's what brings everybody to FaerieCon, that search for myth and meaning and magic in your life," Bardo says. "I notice that a lot of people come to these things because they're lacking magic in their lives, they're living in the city, they're looking for meaning, they're looking for other-worldly experiences, dress-up clothing, odd music, or theater and ritual and all of that kind of stuff. I grew up with a life that was like that all the time. My daughter grew up in a world that was filled with mythic beings and strange tales and long ballads with magic. She lives in a treehouse."
As he speaks about the importance of leading a magical life, a group of rabble-rousing men approach him and he excuses himself: it's time for his induction into The Beloved Order of the Greenman, a kind of fantasy fraternity. The impromptu ceremony consists of some chanting and a few of the guys stuffing acorns down Bardo's shirt.
It's been a long weekend, for Bardo and his faerie ilk, for Palmer and her jewelry, for Poulouin and his prosthetic ears, for everyone. As the world's first international faerie convention wraps up, it's hard to say whether or not it was a success or whether the faeries managed to find a place in Philadelphia. Tomorrow and the day after that, new groups will settle into the Convention Center for business conferences and trade shows, and all that will be leftover from this magical weekend will be a trace of glitter on the ground - faerie dust.
