All posts tagged: fairytale

Need an escape? These 10 magical L.A. spots are dripping with fairy-tale vibes

Need an escape? These 10 magical L.A. spots are dripping with fairy-tale vibes

Published by Sam Flores

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been driving all over Los Angeles doing something I haven’t done in a long time: playing pretend. I pretended I was in a medieval castle at a French cafe in Miracle Mile and that I was looking for trolls on a fern-filled hike in Griffith Park. I imagined that Tolkien’s elves built the creekside restaurant where I met a friend for brunch in Topanga and that I was eating alongside real witches in a forest-themed dining room in North Hollywood. In a Whittier tea room, I poured a glittering potion that said “Drink Me” into a glass of Champagne and in Beverly Hills, I stared awestruck at the platonic ideal of a witch’s house, half expecting a bent old lady with a wart on her nose to come out and turn me into a toad. It’s been a rough start to 2026 and these brief moments of make-believe have served as a joyful balm in sad and scary times. I’m not looking to bypass reality, but taking a break …

Gen Z Has Waltzed Right Into Vienna’s Fairy-Tale Balls

Gen Z Has Waltzed Right Into Vienna’s Fairy-Tale Balls

Published by Sam Flores

One of them was Carmen Bracho, 30, an engineer in Toronto who planned an entire trip to Vienna with her boyfriend for the Philharmonic Ball this January. “I started seeing it come up more on my socials,” Bracho says. “What captured my attention was that fairy-tale aesthetic and all the traditions, like the waltzing, the live music, the performances from the debutantes. In North America, we don’t have long-lasting traditions like that.” Bracho says the price for the ball was comparable to a concert ticket, but instead of a couple of hours of live music, she had eight, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. “In Toronto, there’s nowhere to go where you can dance all night,” she says. One of the highlights, she says, was the quadrille. During Viennese balls, when the clock nears midnight, suddenly and as if on a cue, hundreds of people form two long lines in the ballroom. While the emcee gives instructions, the room descends into chaos as groups of strangers try to follow the steps to a dance set …

Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel fairytale continues with haute couture debut | Chanel

Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel fairytale continues with haute couture debut | Chanel

Published by Sam Flores

It is the biggest job in fashion and Matthieu Blazy is knocking it out of the park. Chanel, the most famous fashion house in the world, with annual sales of almost $20bn (£14.6bn) and a designer lineage that includes Coco Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld, is an intimidating prospect for a 41-year-old Belgian designer who, until his appointment last year, was little known outside the industry. But this haute couture debut, his third collection for the house, confirmed that Blazy is off to a dream start. The show concluded with a standing ovation from the audience, which included Anna Wintour, Nicole Kidman and Dua Lipa. Backstage, veteran Chanel personnel were high-fiving each other – a remarkable display of giddiness in an industry where cool is all. In the Grand Palais venue, transformed into a willow wood of sugar-pink trees and fairytale giant mushrooms, clients tossed sable coats to the ground and clustered for grinning selfies. By every metric, approval ratings for the new-look Chanel are off the charts. A boxy suit in tissue-thin mousseline led the …

How woman’s ‘fairytale’ home upgrade turned into a nightmare | Science, Climate & Tech News

How woman’s ‘fairytale’ home upgrade turned into a nightmare | Science, Climate & Tech News

Published by skeptic

When Jane Wallbank found out she’d been awarded free upgrades to make her home warmer and cheaper to run, it sounded like “a fairytale”. “Bills have become astronomically expensive in the last few years,” said Jane, a support worker for people with learning needs. Then she qualified for internal wall insulation, smart radiator sensors and an extractor fan under the ECO (Energy Company Obligation) scheme, designed to upgrade homes for those in fuel poverty and make them greener. It is paid for by energy bill payers and overseen by a patchwork of energy companies, the government and other agencies. “I almost felt special, like I could cut energy bills and have a bit left each month,” said Jane, a single mother-of-two, who works full-time but receives some universal credit. But she ended up without heating for three weeks, a home flooded from top to bottom, mouldy floors, holes in the walls, doubled heating bills and asthma attacks. Image: Not quite the home of a fairytale. Pic: Jane Wallbank “It’s been the worst experience of my …