While teaching Alice's Adventures in Wonderland this week in ENG 370: History of Children's Literature, I am Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition (Norton, 1999)encouraging the students to read an interview I did with Martin Gardner (link is to .pdf). Gardner is, in many ways, a modern twin to Lewis Carroll. He's a mathematician, puzzle-maker as well as a story teller and magician. The interview that I wrote for Five Owls, a periodical on children's literature, focused on Gardner's classic books: The Annotated Alice, More Annotated Alice, and Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition.
In the interview, Gardner revealed that he didn't initially like the Alice books because when he was young he found them scary. When he was in his 20s and a mathematician, he picked up Alice's Adventures because he was familiar with Carroll as a mathematician. Curiously, Gardner, like Carroll, also became famous for writing puzzles and math games for children. Gardner also wrote a famous, long-running column for Scientific American and is the author of more than 70 books, including some fantasies for children. And was a genuinely nice person to interview.
Alice in Wonderland is inspiring high fashion designers as they pick up on trends from the upcoming film, the Victorian Alice novels and its upper-class, very proper British sensibility.
Tom Binns, high-end jewelry collaborator with Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, has a collection of chunky, opulent jewelry with keys and trinkets that are inspired by Alice in Wonderland. These are also in collaboration with Disney and will sell for $100 to $2,000. Michelle Obama, by the way, has worn Binns' creations.
OPI has a special edition of colors linked to the upcoming Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland film. The glittery, over-the-top colors include: Absolutely Aice, Mad as a Hatter, Off With her Red!, and Thanks So Muchness!
OPI's display for Alice in Wonderland nail polishFashion has always been an important part of the Alice novels. Of course, she does spend a great deal of time looking into a Looking-Glass. Carroll, too, was a devotee to fashion.
According to Alice Liddell, Carroll "always wore black clergyman's clothes in Oxford, but when he took us out on the river, he used to wear white flannel trousers. He also replaced his black top-hat with a hard white straw hat on those occassions, but of course retained his black boots, because in those days white tennis shoes had not yet been heard of." Carroll favored black, always a fashion statement, and tended to wear his hair longer than others. He was decidedly class conscious in his clothes. He almost always wore gloves in public.
In the novels, Alice is a bit of a snob, a proper upper-middle-class child who longs toStella McCartney's jewelry inspired by Alice in Wonderland play croquet with royalty. When she falls down the rabbit hole and wonders who she is she is afraid she might be Mabel and be forced to live in that "poky little house" and "have next to no toys to play with."
More fashion designers teaming with Disney include Sue Wong for Walt Disney Signature. "I have long been mesmerized by the fantastical tales of Alice and her surrealistic adventures in Wonderland and am thrilled to be collaborating with Disney on this project," explains designer Sue Wong whose Alice clothes will be sold in Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom's, Lord and Taylor and Macy's, as well as on www.SueWong.com.
Alice Is The New Black. Here's a video of how Disney promoted its high-end fashion last year at the MAGIC Convention in Las Vegas.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 08:06AM 
Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition (Norton, 1999)encouraging the students to read an interview I did with Martin Gardner (link is to .pdf). Gardner is, in many ways, a modern twin to Lewis Carroll. He's a mathematician, puzzle-maker as well as a story teller and magician. The interview that I wrote for Five Owls, a periodical on children's literature, focused on Gardner's classic books: The Annotated Alice, More Annotated Alice, and Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition.
