#reyes.worldbuilding

Fashion is a Royal (and Family) Affair

That Crown Princess Barbie is a student of Uspanian style isn’t a surprise. For this issue, she recounts the historical episode at the heart of our memorial for the late Queen Beatriz. Pictured above in private photos are: Mother Desideria in 1860; Mother Zuriñe in 1885; Mother Rowena and then-Crown Prince Alfonso in 1926.

THE “BIRDIE” ISSUE OF VOGUE USPANA debuted in 1973. At the time, the magazine was in its infancy. An issue shaped by the queen—and it was, from cover to cover, driven by her desires and presence—ensured longevity. It proved to be a bestseller. Clothes, too, flew off the racks as Uspana’s designers received a boost among popular consumers. A textiles renaissance commenced among women of a certain class who had been looking elsewhere for quality fabric. Then and now, this was the mission of the magazine: loyalty to Uspanian fashion. The Birdie issue was a testament to this, from the sensibilities it imparted to the sourcing of its materials. The queen’s favorite designers, stylists, and photographers filled the issue; it made them iconic, and they would continue to set national trends for decades to come. More importantly, the Birdie issue fit into a larger project underway during Beatriz’s reign. Foreign fashion’s creep into the Uspanian mainstream had started two centuries before Beatriz obtained the Crown, but it reached its cultural apex under the sway of her mother. Uspana’s people had long reviled Queen Rowena’s taste in one breath and wished to emulate it in the second. The two women were not seemingly opposed in a diametric sense. They overlapped under the label of “extravagant,” namely, but Beatriz was forgiven her excess. The Birdie issue, in retrospect, shows why. In an initial meeting with the queen, she told then-editor Lluc Soler that she cared deeply about a “revival” of traditional fashion in the country. Soler replied that traditional fashion was alive and well—“in the mountains, with the grandmothers.” Some in the annals have suggested that this retort led to control of the issue being ceded informally to a team with whom the queen preferred to work. (By 1975, Papan Ibarra had risen from those ranks to become the magazine’s new editor-in-chief, a position she occupied until 1991.) Nonetheless, a certain truth in Soler’s statement formed the foundation of the issue. It did draw heavy inspiration from those grandmothers in the mountains. This included people such as the queen’s own grandmother, Mother Zuriñe, who readily embraced the aesthetics of Yaas and was a master weaver in her own right. The cover reflected the elevated homage orchestrated within. On it, Birdie herself posed in a wool rebozo hand-dyed with cochineal. This garment was a perfect duplicate of the so-called suncloths the queen’s great-grandmother, Mother Desideria, wore on a regular basis in the late nineteenth century. Fittingly, it was also topped with a replica inspired by the time. One of the many jewelry pieces destroyed during the 1880s had been the Shield Flower tiara with its red fire opal set in gold and symbolic allusions to the sacrifice and self-immolation of Uspana’s founding mothers. Queen Beatriz wore tiaras on many occasions, but it was widely known that she preferred to wear the true Uspanian symbol of elite regalia: the jade necklace. For that reason, jade

obviously, however, this is not the region that i've chosen as the inspiration base for the story's worldbuilding. for that, i've taken inspiration from designs and depictions of either body paint or actual tattoos. (one source is this comic, which is super well-researched and interesting!) the actual process has been really slow-going because i don't want to ?? misrepresent anything i'm borrowing inspiration from ?? even if it's being put in a fictional space, you never want someone to be like "that looks familiar, but it's wrong and offensive." the body paint, for example, is from a set that is, i believe, brazilian, but i haven't been able to figure out to what indigenous communities it belongs or what the meanings may be. feels a little weird, tbh, but the content for this whole entire hemisphere is SO limited. so, i have been hesitant in part because i don't want to lift designs without trying to understand what they might have meant historically or may currently mean to descendants.

i also would, ideally, like to have meaning ascribed to the details in my own mind? like, if there's a style of tattoo that people are getting across generations within the context of the story, then the elements have to have meaning. probably. the other limitation is that i can't spend all of my time figuring this stuff out or, worse, in photoshop trying to master the line art and fight the way sims destroys image quality sdjksdg

for example: the tattoos depicted below on alfonso and rui are comprised of stepped frets. my understanding is that they're called xicalcoliuhqui in nahuatl, and they're at least a couple thousand years old, with connotations related to the feathered serpent and mountains—a primordial motif with deep roots in the worldview(s) of the region's religious complex(es). the bird on their shoulders is a fantasy bird, apparently, that is frequently (mis?)identified as an eagle ... for my purposes, it's probably an eagle sdjsg i've decided these are military tattoos, but i'm still in the process of figuring out what the military orders are and how these tattoos fit into that ... this is the problem with creating details then having to retroactively refit them into something you create later on down the line !!!!!!

the body paint on arnaut (below) is also a military design, in my mind. he doesn't have the tattoos because he's not in the same order that alfonso and rui were/are/will be. safya's body paint (below) is funerary since she's a corpse in that picture. there are distinctions based on occupation, gender, life stage or accomplishments, whether one is considered nobility/royalty or a commoner, and so forth. same with the tattoos ! i imagine the clans also have their own specific designs (halima has a face tattoo from the aforementioned set; blanca's are based on zuriñe's family's, so i guess they'd be an armendariz design rather than a reyes one, which ... fascinating choice, blanca ????). the body paint is ceremonial, so it's most likely to be seen at an event like a funeral, a coronation, etc. i've been thinking a lot about royal orders lately, and i think they're more likely to be represented with tattoos (or body paint) than a little thing you pin on yourself.

okay, i'm going to stop now because i'm rambling and have nothing left to say of substance skgsjg if you have follow-ups, feel free to ask :^)