Being Belle

"I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can tell."

And yes it is true. I do want adventure. And I got it the day I decided to cosplay as my favorite Disney princess of all time, Belle from Beauty and the Beast. It was a journey I never expected.

As a little girl, I would watch Beauty and the Beast more than 2 or 3 times a day. It got to the point where my parents were so afraid of me breaking my VHS tape that they went out and bought a second one. To this day, the original tape still works and the second one is in the original plastic, still unopened.

But this was only the start of becoming Belle. She has always been an inspiration to me. Part of it was that at she is the only true brunette Disney princess where all the others are blonde, red-head, or have black hair. Belle was different. She had brown hair and brown eyes (though some will argue that they are hazel). Either way I felt like she and I looked alike. As a little girl, I found my role model and I wanted to be just like her. So the moment I learned to read, I started reading as much as I could whenever I could.

I remember getting yelled at as a child for being up past my bedtime because I was reading. When I was in 1st grade I was already at a 3rd grade reading level. By 3rd grade, I was already reading classics like Sherlock Holmes and the Count of Monte Cristo. And maybe two or three years later I started reading Shakespeare. I loved to read, still do, and I devour anything and everything I can.

Though I would be lying if I said certain books were bad. I do have those I hate, but I keep them around to serve as a reminder of what books are good and what is good writing. (The reasons for that will be covered in another post later on). I tried to live as Belle would. I wanted to be fierce and independent. I wanted to be knowledgeable and not settle for just ordinary.

And this is probably a reason I got bullied a lot. I was "strange but special. A most peculiar mademoiselle". Becoming a real life Disney princess turned out to be much lonelier than I had expected. Something I didn't learn until I got older.

"It's a pity and a sin, she doesn't quite fit in."

It's true. I didn't quite fit in. In fact I still don't. But what is nice about the cosplay community is that you don't have to. You can be yourself. When I finally got old enough to go to conventions and start learning that I can be myself without shame, it changed my life. It showed me a new way to really become Belle.

And this is where the adventure really starts. My cosplay handle as I may have mentioned before is Once & Future Queen Cosplay. Most of the characters I have taken to cosplaying are queens or will one day become queens, but I am also huge fan of the Arthurian Legend. This plays an even deeper role in becoming Belle for in the Beauty and the Beast Broadway Musical. In the song 'Something There' after Beast gives Belle the library she pulls a book off the shelf. "Oh this is one of my favorites! It's King Arthur, have you ever read it?" It is from this song that I began to build a Belle around this particular line.

Looking at the original animated film, her favorite book has a blue cover. "Well it's my favorite! Far off places, daring sword fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise." There is so much debate a to what this book is but I am still convinced that it is the story of King Arthur for there are many interpretations of it and because the Broadway show confirmed it to be one of Belle's favorites. Far off places - Camelot and Britannia England along with the Holy Land for some of Lancelot's greatest quests. Daring sword fights - besides just having the greatest knights in the world, Camelot had many great fights between Gwain and the Green Knight, the Black knight's own battles, Lancelot's quests and redemption, and most notably, Arthur's final battle with Mordred in Camlan. Magic Spells - Merlin, Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, and Morgan le Fay. Does this really need any more explination? A prince in disguise - Arthur. In almost every incarnation of this legend, Arthur was taken from his parents as a baby and raised under the guise of Wart, a servant boy in the home of Sir Ector and his son Kay.

Now with that confirmed in my head, I bought a copy of Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory and it was perfect for it has a blue cover. I was one step closer to becoming a real life Belle. All that was left was to make the dress.

I could go into details about how the first dress was that of an older costume that I cut, dyed, and turned into Belle. I could talk about how a year or so later I remade it into its current incarnation or how I have made her green animated library dress or how I have been working on the 2017 yellow ball gown for over a year. Instead though I will tell you what being Belle is like. What it has meant to be and what it means to others.

I love being Belle. I have seen many people cosplay her but until recently it has been her yellow gown. Now yes, that is her most iconic dress and it is the one that is used most to promote her. But I never stopped remembering that blue peasant dress. How easy it was to move in, and how while she stood out being the only one in the village to wear blue, it made her also ordinary. She wasn't born a princess, she didn't even want to necessarily be a princess. She just didn't want to settle for the mundane and the common.

Neither did I. And so my first Belle dress became the blue one and in erupted like I could never imagine. People loved it. They were fascinated, they wanted photos. I never felt more confident in a costume than I do as Peasant Belle. They kept telling me how Belle is their favorite princess, others didn't see me as a cosplayer and saw me as Belle said "You are my favorite princess!" and "OMG you look amazing!". They love that I use my natural and real hair, and that I am constantly reading. Some people still can't believe the weight of some of the books I'll use because I am actually reading them at the time. I started wearing her every chance I could because well, it made me feel good to hear such nice things, and it made others feel good to see me.

Little girls would walk up to me and I would pose with them. I'd give them a rose or let them hold the enchanted Mirror or my book. Women of all ages would love and hug me. When the 2017 live action film came out, I went to the movie theater dressed as Belle and the people freaked out! They all ran to me and hugged me. They joked about how I did a great job in the film. Little girls wanted pictures with me, and these two older women asked for one for their daughters who also loved Belle. I became a bit of an icon and felt like a local celebrity.

Now I know it seems like I am stroking my own ego, that I am being self-absorbed, and very un-Belle-like. But that's not what I am trying to say or do. I embodied her. At the cons I go to, I will walk around reading the book, (apparently being one of the only Belles who can do such a thing), I will sing the songs to myself or with people when they come up to me, I will talk to them like I'm not even in a costume because when I am Belle, I don't feel like I am cosplaying. I feel like I am myself. She has become the one costume I have truly become known for, even though she is one of the simplest costumes I have ever made.

She brings such joy whenever I wear her, she makes me want to be more like her and not judge less of those I see and me more open-minded. Belle started be on a journey I never expected when I started to embody her, and it took and even more meaningful path when I started cosplaying her. She inspires me and makes me a better person.