Leo, seven, with her Disney’s Maleficent and Aurora dolls
With three kickass queens helming the narrative, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil was up there with Captain Marvel as Leo and my favourite films of 2019 (I mean, I loved Joker too, but couldn’t exactly take a seven-year-old to that). While it’s Michelle Pfeiffer’s Queen Ingtrith who wins the style wars (if not, spoiler alert! the actual war) with her diamond and pearl weaponised finery, Leo is obsessed with the young fey Maleficent who protects the Moors before she is betrayed by the human boy she is in love with, Stefan.
So when she was tasked with dressing up as her favourite fairytale character for school, Leo was insistent on being young Maleficent. Secretly I was mighty chuffed that she didn’t choose the obvious princessy role, Aurora, or any other of the more emotionally bland fairy tale protagonists. On the flip side, none of the costume manufacturers make a young Maleficent (you can get Angelina Jolie’s adult Maleficent for kids and there are endless options for Elle Fanning’s Aurora) so we had to figure out a DIY solution. If time and money were no issue, this ensemble from Etsy is divine, but, as both time and money were an issue, I used it as a kick-off to get a dress made in Dubai’s Satwa by the ever-amazing tailors at Dream Girls). For horns, I repurposed a pair of red devil horns left over from Halloween and extended them using tinfoil into something resembling Maleficent’s striking headpiece, before wrapping it all in duct tape. We made a necklace from twine and yellow pom-poms and finished it all off with a pair of elf ears and black angel wings from Creative Minds, plus her winter boots from Zara. Leo was thrilled and I’m not ruling out a replay for Halloween 2020 - particularly if I get to be Queen Ingrith. Mistresses of evil unite.
