Golden chariot awaits with a golden pair of shoes- glistening with embroidery crystals and beads on a sateen base.
They shine throughout the night and act as cushions on the feet.
There is a party and the virginal maiden princess is lounging around having her shoes admired.
Evil witch curses her and chops off her feet. She eventually saves herself- nobody else can save her. A true feminist tale.

Her feet bleed profusely and the huge puddle of blood bizarrely turns into a lake/flood and ends up drowning some of the guests and the princess herself. She is shrivelled up dry and the building starts to collapse and seep blood through to the lower floors.
Pearls scatter everywhere as the fairy godmother starts to drown. She saves the girl’s life and sacrifices her own. Continues to watch over her like a guardian angel. Her wound is covered by a pearl encrusted barrier- she stops bleeding but actually dies- just to come back to life later on. The princess will be gifted new prosthetic feet on her first wedding day but she will have to find herself a husband living as an amputee in a beautiful wheelchair. She won’t let her disability stop her from having fun but struggles to find a suitable prince. When at boarding school, she is the life and soul of the party- like regina George with her neck brace at the end of mean girls- only a select few make fun of her for having no feet but she brushes them off as insecure and continues to have fun. She marries an addict. He has no teeth- no curse just a slow disintegration but she rarely sees this as a problem because he has a set of gold teeth and tattoos to match. We all love a bad boy. The evil witch hears about the wedding and plans to gatecrash and curse the princess again. Security are told not to let her in and many safety measures are in place to ensure that the same thing doesn’t happen again. A story of fetish, desire and eros.

A few years later… wedding party to a prince in a new palace. As part of the ceremony, the bride pisses into a vessel that overflows with her pee and it is collected onto a glass three tiered podium where the pee trickles down. Perhaps symbolic of the economy and the power her urine holds.
She has a very self indulgent enemy - writes page after page of obsessive love stories in fluffy red heart shaped journals to depict her own horror stories.

Costume- black ink blot drawings- taffeta and satin stuffed shapes with googly soft toy eyes… a skirt and a long sleeved corset bustier to match…
Leopard print Fur cape to match and lace stockings. Doll-like waxwork figure comes back to life at the funeral of the princess after she tragically ‘dies’. The hall is covered with the most amazing food spread and desserts. Black squid ink spaghetti is served with red sauce. Death is celebrated with bottles of champagne in this otherworldly culture. Belief in the afterlife is widely spread- the funeral is almost an occult like yet joyful and lighthearted celebration. Celebratory decorative cakes are served in the shapes of hearts and golden trinkets. Perfume bottles of the princesses favourite scents are scattered around but mostly belong in the powder rooms. Sandwiches with salmon and cream cheese, anchovies pasta and other symbolic ritualistic foods are served. Rebirth is about as rare as triplets but it does happen… usually it happens in the form of a miracle and rather spontaneously… ghostly figures surround the girl as she comes back to life-she is celebrated and manifested back to life. The whole room cheers and people gasp with disbelief.

She is rushed to the powder room after being gifted the new feet and many people rush around her to celebrate her rebirth. Angela Carter esque imagery and story telling.
Anna Sui powder puffs, Molly Goddard, Miu Miu, Simone Rocha gowns and shrimps faux fur coats. Marabou shawls and trims. Diamante embellishments and embroidered napkins. A very opulent affair. Some might suggest that the princess was awakened by the evident deathly beauty on show at her own funeral that she was revived by the affair from her ‘eternal sleep.’ The princess and the pea references. She notices every small detail and ruffle of feathers- the princess is accustomed to a life of perfection and luxury so much so that she is devastated by her newfound disability- however, she brushes this off and develops a slight martyr complex which disappears when she goes to boarding school. She becomes a spokesperson for those with disabilities and enters competitions with other disabled athletes for tennis and lacrosse. Her rackets are of course, designer and embellished with jewels, crystals and lacquers of the highest quality.

Her teenage years are written very differently and almost resemble that of a Wes Anderson film or Florine Stettheimer painting in regards to a strong plot and developed/impeccably well described imagery/set design almost like a painting and with a very lovely colour palette. She is robbed of her eternal youth and treated very differently by people after her rebirth. Its almost wondered if the disability has been there all along… did she ever have feet? People gossip about her in disbelief and envy. Her tennis shoes are of course, custom made and she plays in a wheel chair. She is by far, the best player on the team and almost beats a worldwide champion at her boarding school. the pair are complete opposites as the princess has no time for sleep- she is eternally in a hypomanic state in which she thrives with activity and is of very good health. Losing this finals match is a devastating time for her and she clairvoyantly sees this loss happening in a dream a couple of nights before. Sometimes it is best to admit defeat and allow others to pass you by. The finalist and winner of the in school competition is set to play against other top boarding schools across the country and so she is crying for days after she loses. The fairy godmother chimes in and reminds her not to start a flood with her tears and so she takes herself to the baths and lounges in the sauna room in her gown for another death and rebirth situation. A death to her tennis career is imminent. An intentional sabotage from a girl who she believed to be her friend. She loses contact with and trust with the divine after wondering why she wasn’t warned of such an earthly betrayal. Her spirits have crossed her and are steering her towards a more virtuous path… and so the hung tennis clothes in her walk in wardrobe become a testament to her vanity and nostalgic yet sad and cruel memories of her tennis player days. People suggest that she still plays for fun but the princess is temperamental, stubborn and disabled by a crippling sense of entitlement and self sabotage. She lives in denial of this self- sabotage for years, shuts herself away, rebels and becomes very distant and shockingly sad about this defeat- developing a need to live a life that is very accusatory and nasty towards other people who dare try to go against the princesses core beliefs.

She starts to see a psychoanalysis who encourages the importance of imagination, play and adventure in the princess’s life. Her psychoanalyst is the only person who she trusts and he suggests to her that she was robbed of her childhood being the golden and only child of the palace. Maybe she needs to explore herself more, rebel less and stop the persecutory delusions that have caused her so much trouble to begin with. Marie Antoinette aesthetically. A true nepotism baby spun out of control, she starts to live a very wholesome life that deals with issues head on. She creates the most amazing fantasies and there are pages and pages of notes written by the psychoanalyst who suggests to her that she is one of the most fascinating cases that she has taken on in a long time. Dreams and memories come flooding back to the princess who has developed an estrangement from her father… he is deeply saddened by her rebellion and longs for her to come back to her sense of self and thus meets with the psychoanalyst twice per week in-between school work. She takes a gap year after two years at a private sixth form college and wears the most gorgeous athletic clothes to demand errands to be run for her in. Lists after lists in gorgeous and elegant handwriting, curls of paper run to the floor and she wraps herself, cocoons herself in the handmade rose paper lists… a very sculptural direct and enigmatic image is portrayed on the screen and in words… she creates a paper shell that looks almost like an octopus and has a major breakthrough about her tennis career through a vision, one that she has been fighting against for years. The girl she played against was insistent on winning because she refused to lose against somebody who’s passion was for the tennis clothes, shoes, attention and after match soirees and not the game itself. This realisation was, in itself, wrong and humiliating to the princess. Her self righteousness stated that this shouldn’t matter and that she loved the game nonetheless than her opponent, attacking her slightly dull, dark and practical athleisure wear and refusal to indulge in after match affairs besides from the occasional appearance. Its very hard to say who was in the right or wrong here… sometimes life is very unfair to those who deserve more and sometimes we are unknowingly being led by something quite dark, disguising itself as a radiant, glowing light source of energy and divine guidance or intervention. Nobody is purely good or bad and life starts to make sense for the princess in her year of rest and relaxation.

She rebels in isolation and does so with good intentions- a part of her dies as she starts to realise more and more about the darker aspects of life. A wound that once hurt very badly seems so ridiculous and empty in regards to her grown up life lessons. What is dark and disturbing becomes circumspect and engrained into her personality as she chooses the crab, the octopus and the seahorse as her totem animals. We’ll come back to the seahorse later but such a determined queen has no time to bear children, all three sea animals are very beautiful, Venusian and divine but maybe have problems when it comes to having their own children. The octopus mother dies after giving birth in an act of self sacrifice. The crab mother is moody and claws at imperfections. The seahorse mother passes on her duty to the father who eventually gives birth to the offspring. This is maybe when the princess is developing her own personality and differing from her parents. There seems to be centuries of history that points to the princess having problems with children. She differs from her usual vacant social crowd who all dote on their partners and would love to be mothers someday in the very near future. The totem paper mache animals are very symbolic, magnificent and esoteric and perhaps even hint towards the future but do not give too much away.

She then develops these into a series of colourful and magical soft sculptures. These differ from her usual black and gold attire from her mourning the the loss of her tennis career days. Her feet are usually wearing the most beautiful tennis shoes and trainers in this time. As if always ready to jump back into a game at any given time.

These sculptures and eventual costumes give birth to a whole new era of the princess’s life and the act of creation serves to be more rewarding than the act of giving birth itself. In relationship to queer time and women’s time. She lives a life that is defiant against societal norms for women and secretly sees her own mother as weak for dying during childbirth which is deeply saddening to herself and her psychoanalyst. The princess marries herself and her creations. She is fulfilled by the most bizarre dates with sea creatures, mad-men and vagrants. All who are unwilling or unable to give her a child. The psychoanalyst is very wise and almost prophetic- the case of the old wise crone. A very sad and unfortunate case of stupidity- the tweedle dee and tweedle dum characters are cursed for eternal damnation and misery for mocking the princess and being envious towards her beautiful and delicate frame and shoe collection. Her favourite shoe merchant remains loyal, sees no difference to her feet and even praises the princess for dealing with such misfortune so well… continuing to make her the most beautiful shoes and seeing the curse as a testament to his beloved craft. Her old feet are kept in a box in his shop- wearing an anklet like a madam tussads waxwork display- perhaps the fetishisitic love that the shoe merchant has for the princess’s feet is what brings her back to life. Perhaps a hint to the pride and obsessive nature that makes up the shoe merchant’s rather light shadow side. She realises through analysis of her own shadow side that she would find it almost impossible to care for a child when everything in her life has always been done for her, the curse is almost a relief and reflective of the princess’s true soul, spirit and anima. An alchemist friend who helps her in making her craft suggests this to her when consoling her about the loss of her potential child with an emotionally unavailable man. The darkness is turned to light and she is swayed away from a life of mysticism with prophetic knowledge that she would eventually live out the humiliation and anger towards her curses by turning into an evil old witch if she doesn’t turn the darkness into light. There is a great scene in which the princess meets with a botanist, a metal worker and a crystal merchant where she practices light magic rituals in order to attract more gratitude, gratefulness and abundance and beauty into her life by working with the alchemist who teaches her to magically alchemise darkness and shadow into light and abundance.

The story of the alchemist is one which teaches the princess humiliation, patience and more virtue by really delving deep into her psyche and even turning some of her old psychoanalytical creations into soft toys for the poor children of her city to play with in her city… she becomes rather engaged with her charitable duties and ends up adopting children with her prince after her father dies. She is left with the whole of the estate and becomes queen after one failed marriage- she finds the right man for her and lives happily ever after with him after engaging so deeply with her intrapersonal intelligence, inner wisdom and the act of birth and creation through years and years of hard work, tears and the avoidance of selfish indulgence with her emotions—- there is a ceremony in which the cards of the major acarna are drawn at her ceremony- a spread of three cards are turned from the upside down position into the upright…the cards of the queen of cups, the card of death and the card of the queen of wands. All lessons that she has mastered in her beautiful life. Her feet and shoes are frequently referenced and as the queen embodies the empress card,( which is placed above the spread of three cards ) she is photographed running around the garden barefoot in the most beautiful sheer multicoloured and textured lace gown on a spring day in may. Her crown is sparkling and golden. She no longer tries to give this crown to other people and instead loves wearing it, she truly embodies the spirit of her beloved mother and grandmother after years of defiance and rebellion. The lesson is learnt about self love, virtuosity and she sheds the skin of her old victim/martyr complex and obsessive nature to develop a beautiful floral gown of the most bright and symbolic colours and craft in order to show a story of personality progression and the dark side to self obsession, perfectionism, over-indulgence and laziness.