Welcome to the Wickedly Wonderful Woods

It’s about that time again.

The trees are beginning to rustle, the first crimson leaves are starting to pad the earth, and each morning the air feels just a bit crisper.

Fall is coming.

And if there were ever a perfect time to open the doors to the new Wicked & Wonder, surely this is it.

Welcome.

This is our very first Journal entry on our very new website—and, appropriately enough, we’re beginning just as the season we love most begins to make its entrance.

Wicked & Wonder has always lived somewhere between the two sides of a fairy tale.

There is the Wonder of it all: impossible gowns, princesses and fairies, sparkling things, beautiful things, and the particular kind of magic that happens when a child catches sight of herself in the mirror and, for just a moment, absolutely believes.

And then there is the Wicked.

Witches. Vampires. Queens with questionable intentions. Dark forests. Beautiful villains. Strange silhouettes. Enormous skirts. Black velvet. A little danger.

We have always had a particular fondness for that side of the woods.

But of course, anyone who has spent much time in fairy tales knows that the woods are never merely scenery.

They are a threshold. Step beyond the trees and anything might be waiting—a wolf around the bend, a witch with a match, a path that disappears just when you were certain you knew the way. There are dangers in the woods, certainly, but there is magic there too: strange companions, unexpected courage, impossible possibilities and adventures you could never have found by staying safely at home.

And perhaps that is why we keep wandering into them. Because the woods are also where we discover what we’re made of. We may enter looking for one thing and find something else entirely—sometimes even ourselves.

So, as Wicked & Wonder sets off down a new path of its own, it seems only fitting that we should begin here.

In the woods.

And for us, September has always meant sketches scattered across the worktable, fabric draped over chairs, pins absolutely everywhere they shouldn’t be, and Halloween orders beginning their annual takeover of the studio. It’s the time of year when perfectly reasonable people begin discussing capes, crowns, wings and witch hats with tremendous seriousness.

As they should.

This year, though, something else is beginning too.

Wicked & Wonder has a new home.

We built this website because after all these years, there was simply more of Wicked & Wonder that we wanted to share than could fit inside a shop listing.

There are stories behind these costumes. There are sketches and experiments, spectacular failures and happy accidents. There are old photographs tucked away from editorial shoots and magazine features. There are fabrics we bought simply because we couldn’t bear to leave them behind. There are costumes whose histories stretch back years, and new ideas still sitting half-finished on the dress form.

And there is the strange little world that has accumulated around all of it.

That’s what this Journal is for.

We’ll go behind the scenes of the studio and back through some of our favorite designs. We’ll talk about costume and character, beautiful materials, old techniques, new technology, inspiration, photography, design, and probably more than a few things that simply caught our eye and sent us wandering off in an unexpected direction.

Which brings us to her.

I had actually planned something quite different for this first post. I was going to revisit one of our witch editorial shoots from years ago. (That will be another post.)

But while working on the new site, I started playing with an image of all the things already rattling around in my head: fall, ancient woods, lantern light, the glow of fall, an extravagant black dress and, naturally, a rather formidable witch.

And somehow, out of the woods she came. Morgana. 

I loved her.

She isn’t one of our costumes, and this isn’t one of our photographs. She’s simply an imagined bit of the Wicked & Wonder world that i created—and she seemed far too perfect for the occasion not to invite her in.

She's everything that's wonderful about the Wicked. She's darkness, and shadow, susurrous silk, and haunting power. 

So she gets to stay.

Our first image, for our first Journal, at the beginning of a new website and the beginning of fall.

It seems rather auspicious after all.

Welcome to Wicked & Wonder.

Come wander in the woods with us.