I finally realized the reason that I love your videos so much is because you talk about the nicher topics on winx that aren't that discussed in the fandom
Ah makes me really glad to hear 😊I sometimes think that the videos I make are too niche to be appealing, but also I don't want to do anything else, so I'm really happy that's what people like about them!
I remember when the Fairy Couture shop website was up omg, it was so confusing at first 6:03 This reminds me of those time travel artworks from Season 7 where it's almost impossible to tell Bloom and Flora apart!!
it's actually pretty interesting how lots of merch from the 2000s is still available in italian shops while winx couture completely disappeared (i only found some wow merch). I think you could make a video in the future about winx merch in italy or in general the winx club phenomenon in italy!
Really? When I was in Rome a couple of years ago, I did my best to look for Winx stuff, but I only found merch of later seasons that weren't so interesting to me. The earliest I found were some Believix figurines... But it's really nice that the merch is still out there! (Maybe they just weren't in touristy areas?) Yeah, it's kind of strange what a contained phenomenon Fairy Couture was, but realistically it was only 2 years I think. Early Winx merch is pretty timeless, but FC is very stuck in 2013, perhaps that's why. Thank you for your confidence, but I think that would be quite hard for me 😅 I have very specific pockets of knowledge about Winx, but I never experienced it from within Italy, so I don't know if I could have anything insightful to say about it. I'll look into it though! But there is an upcoming book on the subject actually "La nazione Winx: Educare la futura consumista" (Nerenberg & Marini-Maio) about the influence of Winx within Italy that perhaps you would be interested in? The authors have also written academic articles about Winx. It's not a very positive perspective, but still very interesting.
@@talkytilki first of all thanks for the suggestion! In big shops it is difficult to find old merch but in tiny ones there's still something (you're gonna be luckier at markets). I personally found season 3 stuff. It's true though that most of the old stuff is from season 4 for some reason
Btw, there's also a funny fact about Fairy Couture : it sometimes features futures outfits for the Winx (aka Bloom, Flora and Stella) for the futures Seasons. The uniforms from Season 6, the Golden Travel outfits and Silver Urban ones (from the shots where the Winx are with Bloom and her car at Gardenia) from Season 7, and even the casual looks of World of Winx were featured into the Winx Fairy Couture franchise way before to appears in the show.
This means so much to me. This style is my favorite winx thing ever. And I didn't grow up on the show, so I missed out on all the cool stuff and now no one talks about it and it's hard to come by. Then your videos come to save me 🩷 thank you so much, I really appreciate and love everything you do. If I had money I'd donate to you for your great effort and passion for the show and brand.
Wow, thank you! 🥺🥺🥺 And I really really appreciate your interest in my videos! It makes me really happy to see the same people show up in different comment sections, and to continue conversations with them... (Also, you were the one who gave me the idea for this video, so.)
Younger me thought the fairy couture designs were fanarts 😭 Even as a child I found the fairy couture artstyle weird.I think my main problem was with how the eyes were drawn and the hair colours between Bloom and Flora being too similar.The concept of whitewashing didn't ocurr to me as a child but now I find it one of the most damaging moves for the brand as a whole. The problem with the couture artstyle in my opinion is similar to what you explained.I think Rainbow didn't fully commit.They wanted a more mature target with their clothing at first but still wanted to capitalize out of Winx's success.But Winx's aesthetic is very different from what they were going for at first. The use of the couture artstyle in the nick era was so massive that the show accurate artstyle for the respective transformations existed only in the comics. Rainbow's consistency nowadays also leaves a lot to be desired.Some decisions have definitely hurt the brand but we can look at the fairy couture artstyle as a monument of Rainbow's experimenting and ideas to branch the winx as a brand. Btw i love how you pronounce 'couture'.Sounds very french and i'm here for it😂
Yes, they are so similar looking all of them that even the designers were getting confused... The picture on the Sweet Fairy Stella box is of Bloom. I think there is definitely a switch around 2015(?) where suddenly instead of designing new fashions for Fairy Couture, they start using show looks instead. The same with the logo - they go from using the black subtle Couture logo on merch of FC artstyle to using the regular Winx logo. (Thank you aha 👉👈I was trying to bring out my inner Rarity...)
It's always great to see a vid from you on my feed. :3 As for the Coture style - I think in general it looks really great, I like the more mature look and there was definitely a place for both it and the original style. It could have helped keep it alive for both kids and an older audience. However, I agree that it's super unfortunate and sad that Layla and Flora just straight up don't look like themselves anymore and there's no excuse for not trying harder to match their original skin tone.
What's weird about it is that sometimes they do get it (sometimes they go even darker for Flora) and sometimes they don't. It's bizarre, and at first it was perhaps to do with outside designers for merch, but in terms of magazine, the same editors have been working on it for years...???
I loved your compilation and analysis video! It brought back so many memories seeing all those pictures and products from back then. I still remember when they first introduced Winx Fairy Couture! It looked so different but I loved the more designer style of fashion. It's a shame it didn't take off, they had some great designs. I'm glad my blog helped you make this video! Thanks! 💖💖💖
And I'd like to thank you for all the effort you put into your blog and your channel! I've been reading your blog for years! It's a very precious resource for Winx fans 💕💕💕
@talkytilki Oh really? I don't know if we've ever talked before but thank you so much for following what I share! 🥰 I just found out about your channel because a follower sent me this video because you mentioned me 😅 but I see that you have a lot of interesting videos! I'm going to watch them and subscribe! 🤗 Keep it up! I hope you have a happy end of the year. ❤️❤️❤️
I can't remember which channel was it but during Fate's initial airing someone made a really interesting point in regards to diversity in most of these shows coming out in the early 2000s. To break it down their point, diversity back then wasn't there for diversity's sake but was part of the strategy plan to market toys kids. Back then it was important that kids could see themselves in each of the Winx girls and that included the kids of color. That's where Fate comes in. Fate was for an older audience and so the show took the Hollywood approach of "diversity for the sake of diversity" to appeal to gen-z aka doing enough to check off a box then adhere to typical white Hollywood standards. I never really heard of Fairy Couture until WoW but it seems like it followed the same path as Fate. Aimed at an older audience with the merch leaning more fashion orientated. To sum up, diversity was a form of marketing toys to kids. If the target audience weren't kids, diversity was an afterthought. But of course that has changed in modern times.
Wow, yeah, I think that really sums it all up. Down to Rainbow 'forgetting' the ethnicity of their characters - because it wasn't really a part of their characterisation as much as it was an aesthetic choice... Thanks for bringing it up.
2:25 Only the Bloom Urban Fairy doll was limited to 500 (until Russia release it years later) via the website Winx Club Shop. The Stella Sweet Fairy was a special edition available on shelves but not limited. 7:04 I wish I have all those Fairy Couture magazines !! I like them =D 7:13 I didn't realized that the year when World of Winx was announced (around 2013-2014) was only a year after the launch of the Winx Fairy Couture. It makes more sense now why they used this artstyle for the spin-off ! The worst part of this denial of whitewashing was really when this artist from Rainbow has tried to explain on Twitter that the cover of Winx Club italian Magazine N°220 (where you can barely see the difference between Bloom, Aisha and Flora) wasn't the final version meant to be printed when Aisha still continues to have the exact same skintone than the other Winx girls on the following issues of the magazine covers. PS: I love how you pronounce "Couture" in such a French way.
Little trivia about Fairy Couture: last week I had the idea to recopilate and draw all the Fairy Couture wings, thinking there weren't too many... After a whole afternoon of searching up and down, I've found that this damn style has proximally a hundred different wings, most are completely original, and if you take in count the two dolls that had lace wings, which can be in completely different positions between each doll, this art style has more a thousand wings... After this revelation, I gave up the idea to draw them and went to sleep. If you could't tell I'm obsesed with wings, esoecially the winx's
I didn’t know about fairy couture so this explanation was helpful to me. After season 8 and “world of winx” I drew a hard line on what exactly I am a fan of in this franchise. Season 1-3 and the first movie (mostly for the lore). After a recent rewatch of the movie I assumed flora’s whitewashing started there, until I watched this video. Still I enjoy the music in the later seasons and I’ll watch the reboot out of curiosity. Even the comics I wasn’t into it (story wise) as the show but I love the earlier art style from.
13:10 OMG I recognise that outro music from an old spooky house themed flash game from my childhood! 😮 I just looked it up, it's called "Haunted House".
Okay but the second girl 8:59 from the left is Bloom, not Flora. It's strange that no matter how much the skin color or face changes, I can still recognize who is who.
Winx has always had a… weird relationship with its darker skinned characters races. Especially floras. Sometimes I’ve been wondering more and more lately is if they ever TRULY processed the fact they made her a woman of colour? Like don’t get me wrong, I think they always knew she wasn’t white on an extremely literal level. But I’m starting to feel it never… clicked for rainbow that she was specifically a girl from another culture like musa or aisha are? At least until the fate drama. Where they seemed to have a “ooooh. We did make her LATINA didn’t we...” Like they’ve seemed much more SURE of her ethnicity since. Like they’ve only just realised it😭
Yeah... I think you are right on, actually. I remember a video (possibly bts footage from the first film) where Straffi was talking about each of the girls, and the way he spoke about making Flora latina felt only like he wanted to give her a particular 'look' rather than an identity. I've found the video: th-cam.com/video/2bB3hSfeghs/w-d-xo.htmlfeature=shared (at around 1:34 he says: "Then there is Flora, who I wanted to be a young Jennifer Lopez, [...] hispanic, sunny, romantic, beautiful...)
Thank you for making this video! I was really looking forward to it, the fairy couture artstyle has always been very intriguing to me and I found a little hard to actually get more info about it online. Also...could you please talk more about Maya fox? I know it might be a bit off topic since the channel is more Winx related, but just like the fairy couture style I can never get much information about the franchise itself t-t
I'm really happy you found it interesting! Definitely look through Winx Club All's blog for more about Fairy Couture as she has archived articles about it as well, if you want more. The next Winxplained episode will be about Maya Fox 😊 Even though it's not Winx, it still gives us interesting insight into Rainbow as a company and it's interesting to compare brand strategy and target demographic. I'm thinking around late October - November? So the Fate video will be first.
@@talkytilki Absolutely cannot wait for it! I first saw some art of her earlier this year iirc and ever since I've been very intrigued by the character! Best wishes 💜💜💜
There's something about how the ood fairy coture art style before it's integration into the main show's promotional artwork, that always kinda felt uncanny to me I don't know how to describe it but the way the hair's draw and the clothes they look photoshopped on😭
how cool, I still have 2 perfumes of bloom I have never opened lol, when I was a kid I was so confused if it was winx or not, since it looked pretty different from winx club, I might have had other stuff winx fairy couture, but I forgot what it was, I was still a kid after all.
I hated that they would start using it as an official artstyle for stock art. Season 7 especially. Try finding traditional 2D stock art for e.g Butterflix or their casual outfits
Maya Fox 2012! It was a crime and supernatural book and comic series from between 2008-2012. I have a couple of shorts about it if you're interested: th-cam.com/users/shortsrNKEBGPpzyM?feature=share
I think the whole represention thing is really just marketing, they did it when it was relevant and a good way to market, and stopped when it became irrelevant. Now it's relevant again so they're doing it again in the reboot, once it goes out of fashion again, since trends cycle like that, they'll drop it again. They initially did it in 2004 to compete with all the American shows that did the same, as well as W.i.t.c.h. Personally, I don't care about this topic at all, and to me, Aisha still looks black in s8 and WoW, and dare I say, Flora looks better with the lighter skin. They're all aliens from planets in outer space, they don't have real human races so who cares what skintone they have? Sometimes I'd rather they have blue, pink, purple, green, red etc. skintones instead for this annoying topic to be dropped, but I know people would be reaching and claiming purple skin=black or something like in the MLP fandom and insist a character is black because they're purple. I'll never understand this obsession with race in media people have. I grew up watching western shows with white characters who have colorful hair or asian shows with obviously asian characters and I grew up alright. They were fun and interesting because they looked different and had different lives. When a local show with someone who looks like me and has a similar life would air, I'd just change the channel because it's boring and I already know what it's like, why should I watch it? But I guess people who want that are ones who are actually disconnected from their cultural identity and refuse to assimilate with the majority culture instead, so they develop some insecurity and inferiority complex over it, feeling unseen and left out if they're not included in the most literal sense possible. In that case, it's on them to deal with their emotions rather than on media to walk on eggshells to please them. And the characters are owned by rainbow so they're free to modify their literal OCs as much as they want, they're just drawings, Rainbow doesn't owe anyone representation and to fulfill their demands. I'd understand the complaints if the designs were straight up ugly, but they aren't. Nothing's wrong with them at all.
I see what you are saying, and yes, Winx are ultimately aliens. I think one of the advantages in the vagueness of Flora’s ethnic background in the show (I assume this comment is in reference to another comment about that) was that many people saw themselves in her. I lived in different places as a child, and I noticed that she was interpreted differently based on where I was. So people of different backgrounds found they could identify with her, and the fact that she was ‘meant to be latina’ wasn’t really common knowledge. That only came to the forefront during the marketing of the first film: When Winx was first coming out, instead of those American celebrities, marketing material said that they were based on “universally appealing pop-groups like All Saints and the Spice Girls”. Perhaps there is more of a conversation to be had about that. However, I think that the argument against ethnic ambiguity in terms of media and representation exists, because so often companies maliciously use it as a cop-out of genuine diversity. Diversity in media is so important so that people (esp. children) can see all people’s place in the world affirmed. It’s not just about seeing your own ethnicity/gender/sexuality, it’s about other people seeing it too, and understanding that all kinds of people exist, and have the right to exist. Ethnically ambiguous characterisations can also narrow and even take away opportunities for actors of different backgrounds, for example, what happened with Fate. I think when people react to this, they are reacting to the bigger problem, not just Winx in isolation, although I would also understand if some might think it is misplaced in this case, as Winx characters are ultimately aliens from different planets, rather than meant to correspond exactly with Earth people. In the case of Flora though, Rainbow whilst trying to enter the American market, made a huge deal out of her being based on Jennifer Lopez. People were then really excited for Latina representation, especially as Flora represents a different archetype than is commonly portrayed in American media. So, I think it is valid for people to become frustrated and feel let down by the handling of her since, when in all but words, Rainbow made such a promise. For Rainbow to not understand what this would have meant to their new audience, at the very least, reflects poor discernment on their part. In the case of Aisha’s whitewashing, that’s also a lot bigger than Winx, and has a lot to do with historical and present hurts about representations of black women in media, what kind of characterisations are allowed to appear and what is limited, pain and discrimination based on colourism, Eurocentric beauty ideals… All of these intersect and cause genuine harm, because what is viewed in media becomes entrenched in culture. Having dark skin representation especially in children’s media is really important. I don’t think the reaction would have been as severe if Aisha was always lighter skinned, but instead they had one kind of representation, and then took it away. That’s the main issue. I think you’re right that sometimes fandoms can be asinine in their fanon interpretations of ambiguous or anthropomorphic characters, and any other interpretation is taken almost as a sign of personal evil, however personally, I don’t really think that applies to the Winx fandom - in this case, it was the company who created such expectations around the characters. They could have chosen to emphasise the extra-terrestrial origins of their characters, but they didn’t. I agree that the whole corresponding celebrities gimmick was just a marketing tactic, and Rainbow didn’t originally mean much by it. (In fact, if I remember correctly Straffi admits that they actually matched them up with popular celebrities AFTER they had decided on the final designs, by surveying young girls for their favourite pop culture figures.) However, they’ve put so much emphasis on it since 2011 that I really think they’ve made their bed, and now they have to sleep in it. They don’t get to slither out, when they were boasting about how ahead of their time they were in terms of representation. Think of it just as false advertising and people holding a company and product accountable to its product description, if it helps.
@talkytilki thank you for seeing this from my pov. I never did the identitying with a character based on looks and culture thing so this topic is always weird to me. I only care about the experience and personality of the character, instead. If you want to see that annoying behavior in the winx fandom, just spend a few hours scrolling the subreddit lol, it's filled with the prim to people who unironically think the character are those ethnicities and there's no debating it. Every once in a while someone would post what I'd call racebait and big infights will break in the comments about it, and lots of accusations of racism will be thrown at people randomly. Also, I always had a feeling the celebrities thing was a lie, thank you for confirming it lol. And you're right that's it's partially Rainbow's fault for dabbling in this kind of thing to appeal to Americans to start with. Americans think their issues apply to the whole world somehow and get upset when someone doesn't get it, and Rainbow, being Italian, really digged their grave with this when they don't get it at all. I'm already seeing people crying about Stella's skin tone in the reboot because "she's supposed to be tan because she's a white latina" or something??? And they always depict her as dark in fan arts, as dark as Flora's original skin tone, then go and darken Flora and Aisha to compensate and fix it, and make Aisha extremely dark, like charcoal, because that's the "right" way of being black or something. They also want Musa to be the shortest because ofcourse, east asian=short. They just circled back to racism at this point, and I think pandering to crazy people like this is a really stupid idea, they're obviously not into the show for the plot or characters' writing, only for aesthetics and "representation". I always preferred the way older shows, pre-2010s, handled representation without it being too on the nose or a marketing strategy, but nowadays it's just a redflag at this point and means the show is made by annoying people with social media discourse brainrot for annoying people with social media discourse brainrot. It's all so exhausting. I just want a good story and some fun characters and cute art, is that too much to ask for? But nooo everything needs to be activism and political. :( representation is ruined because of this and I can't stand it anymore even though I used to appreciate it as a kid because it got me into western and Asian cultures.
I finally realized the reason that I love your videos so much is because you talk about the nicher topics on winx that aren't that discussed in the fandom
Ah makes me really glad to hear 😊I sometimes think that the videos I make are too niche to be appealing, but also I don't want to do anything else, so I'm really happy that's what people like about them!
@@talkytilki no no keep doing these nische topics. It's a really interesting side of the Winx that I nvr knew abt until Yr channel 🤩
I remember when the Fairy Couture shop website was up omg, it was so confusing at first
6:03 This reminds me of those time travel artworks from Season 7 where it's almost impossible to tell Bloom and Flora apart!!
Ah! I completely overlooked the website as a resource! Do you remember the address? Maybe it's been archived, but I can't seem to find it.
it's actually pretty interesting how lots of merch from the 2000s is still available in italian shops while winx couture completely disappeared (i only found some wow merch). I think you could make a video in the future about winx merch in italy or in general the winx club phenomenon in italy!
Really? When I was in Rome a couple of years ago, I did my best to look for Winx stuff, but I only found merch of later seasons that weren't so interesting to me. The earliest I found were some Believix figurines... But it's really nice that the merch is still out there! (Maybe they just weren't in touristy areas?) Yeah, it's kind of strange what a contained phenomenon Fairy Couture was, but realistically it was only 2 years I think. Early Winx merch is pretty timeless, but FC is very stuck in 2013, perhaps that's why.
Thank you for your confidence, but I think that would be quite hard for me 😅 I have very specific pockets of knowledge about Winx, but I never experienced it from within Italy, so I don't know if I could have anything insightful to say about it. I'll look into it though! But there is an upcoming book on the subject actually "La nazione Winx: Educare la futura consumista" (Nerenberg & Marini-Maio) about the influence of Winx within Italy that perhaps you would be interested in? The authors have also written academic articles about Winx. It's not a very positive perspective, but still very interesting.
@@talkytilki first of all thanks for the suggestion! In big shops it is difficult to find old merch but in tiny ones there's still something (you're gonna be luckier at markets). I personally found season 3 stuff. It's true though that most of the old stuff is from season 4 for some reason
Btw, there's also a funny fact about Fairy Couture : it sometimes features futures outfits for the Winx (aka Bloom, Flora and Stella) for the futures Seasons. The uniforms from Season 6, the Golden Travel outfits and Silver Urban ones (from the shots where the Winx are with Bloom and her car at Gardenia) from Season 7, and even the casual looks of World of Winx were featured into the Winx Fairy Couture franchise way before to appears in the show.
This means so much to me. This style is my favorite winx thing ever. And I didn't grow up on the show, so I missed out on all the cool stuff and now no one talks about it and it's hard to come by. Then your videos come to save me 🩷 thank you so much, I really appreciate and love everything you do. If I had money I'd donate to you for your great effort and passion for the show and brand.
Wow, thank you! 🥺🥺🥺 And I really really appreciate your interest in my videos! It makes me really happy to see the same people show up in different comment sections, and to continue conversations with them... (Also, you were the one who gave me the idea for this video, so.)
I remember that there were a lot of season 6 and 7 stock artworks (including the fairy forms) in the fairy couture art style.
Younger me thought the fairy couture designs were fanarts 😭
Even as a child I found the fairy couture artstyle weird.I think my main problem was with how the eyes were drawn and the hair colours between Bloom and Flora being too similar.The concept of whitewashing didn't ocurr to me as a child but now I find it one of the most damaging moves for the brand as a whole.
The problem with the couture artstyle in my opinion is similar to what you explained.I think Rainbow didn't fully commit.They wanted a more mature target with their clothing at first but still wanted to capitalize out of Winx's success.But Winx's aesthetic is very different from what they were going for at first.
The use of the couture artstyle in the nick era was so massive that the show accurate artstyle for the respective transformations existed only in the comics.
Rainbow's consistency nowadays also leaves a lot to be desired.Some decisions have definitely hurt the brand but we can look at the fairy couture artstyle as a monument of Rainbow's experimenting and ideas to branch the winx as a brand.
Btw i love how you pronounce 'couture'.Sounds very french and i'm here for it😂
Yes, they are so similar looking all of them that even the designers were getting confused... The picture on the Sweet Fairy Stella box is of Bloom.
I think there is definitely a switch around 2015(?) where suddenly instead of designing new fashions for Fairy Couture, they start using show looks instead. The same with the logo - they go from using the black subtle Couture logo on merch of FC artstyle to using the regular Winx logo.
(Thank you aha 👉👈I was trying to bring out my inner Rarity...)
It's always great to see a vid from you on my feed. :3
As for the Coture style - I think in general it looks really great, I like the more mature look and there was definitely a place for both it and the original style. It could have helped keep it alive for both kids and an older audience. However, I agree that it's super unfortunate and sad that Layla and Flora just straight up don't look like themselves anymore and there's no excuse for not trying harder to match their original skin tone.
What's weird about it is that sometimes they do get it (sometimes they go even darker for Flora) and sometimes they don't. It's bizarre, and at first it was perhaps to do with outside designers for merch, but in terms of magazine, the same editors have been working on it for years...???
@@talkytilki yeah that's just bizzar, it makes it seem international.
I loved your compilation and analysis video! It brought back so many memories seeing all those pictures and products from back then. I still remember when they first introduced Winx Fairy Couture! It looked so different but I loved the more designer style of fashion. It's a shame it didn't take off, they had some great designs. I'm glad my blog helped you make this video! Thanks! 💖💖💖
And I'd like to thank you for all the effort you put into your blog and your channel! I've been reading your blog for years! It's a very precious resource for Winx fans 💕💕💕
@talkytilki Oh really? I don't know if we've ever talked before but thank you so much for following what I share! 🥰
I just found out about your channel because a follower sent me this video because you mentioned me 😅 but I see that you have a lot of interesting videos! I'm going to watch them and subscribe! 🤗 Keep it up! I hope you have a happy end of the year. ❤️❤️❤️
@@winxcluball omggg Thank you! And happy holidays to you too!!!🎆🎄🎁 All the best!
I can't remember which channel was it but during Fate's initial airing someone made a really interesting point in regards to diversity in most of these shows coming out in the early 2000s.
To break it down their point, diversity back then wasn't there for diversity's sake but was part of the strategy plan to market toys kids. Back then it was important that kids could see themselves in each of the Winx girls and that included the kids of color.
That's where Fate comes in. Fate was for an older audience and so the show took the Hollywood approach of "diversity for the sake of diversity" to appeal to gen-z aka doing enough to check off a box then adhere to typical white Hollywood standards.
I never really heard of Fairy Couture until WoW but it seems like it followed the same path as Fate. Aimed at an older audience with the merch leaning more fashion orientated.
To sum up, diversity was a form of marketing toys to kids. If the target audience weren't kids, diversity was an afterthought.
But of course that has changed in modern times.
Wow, yeah, I think that really sums it all up. Down to Rainbow 'forgetting' the ethnicity of their characters - because it wasn't really a part of their characterisation as much as it was an aesthetic choice... Thanks for bringing it up.
2:25 Only the Bloom Urban Fairy doll was limited to 500 (until Russia release it years later) via the website Winx Club Shop. The Stella Sweet Fairy was a special edition available on shelves but not limited.
7:04 I wish I have all those Fairy Couture magazines !! I like them =D
7:13 I didn't realized that the year when World of Winx was announced (around 2013-2014) was only a year after the launch of the Winx Fairy Couture. It makes more sense now why they used this artstyle for the spin-off !
The worst part of this denial of whitewashing was really when this artist from Rainbow has tried to explain on Twitter that the cover of Winx Club italian Magazine N°220 (where you can barely see the difference between Bloom, Aisha and Flora) wasn't the final version meant to be printed when Aisha still continues to have the exact same skintone than the other Winx girls on the following issues of the magazine covers.
PS: I love how you pronounce "Couture" in such a French way.
Wow, I didn't know about the artist thing. Do you have a link to this?
Little trivia about Fairy Couture: last week I had the idea to recopilate and draw all the Fairy Couture wings, thinking there weren't too many... After a whole afternoon of searching up and down, I've found that this damn style has proximally a hundred different wings, most are completely original, and if you take in count the two dolls that had lace wings, which can be in completely different positions between each doll, this art style has more a thousand wings... After this revelation, I gave up the idea to draw them and went to sleep.
If you could't tell I'm obsesed with wings, esoecially the winx's
I didn’t know about fairy couture so this explanation was helpful to me. After season 8 and “world of winx” I drew a hard line on what exactly I am a fan of in this franchise. Season 1-3 and the first movie (mostly for the lore).
After a recent rewatch of the movie I assumed flora’s whitewashing started there, until I watched this video.
Still I enjoy the music in the later seasons and I’ll watch the reboot out of curiosity. Even the comics I wasn’t into it (story wise) as the show but I love the earlier art style from.
13:10 OMG I recognise that outro music from an old spooky house themed flash game from my childhood! 😮 I just looked it up, it's called "Haunted House".
Yes!😄I love that game. Did you know that it's been archived? You can still play it even without flash!
@@talkytilki That's great! 😄
Okay but the second girl 8:59 from the left is Bloom, not Flora. It's strange that no matter how much the skin color or face changes, I can still recognize who is who.
Omg you're right! I zoomed into the wrong part of the picture...
Winx has always had a… weird relationship with its darker skinned characters races.
Especially floras. Sometimes I’ve been wondering more and more lately is if they ever TRULY processed the fact they made her a woman of colour?
Like don’t get me wrong, I think they always knew she wasn’t white on an extremely literal level. But I’m starting to feel it never… clicked for rainbow that she was specifically a girl from another culture like musa or aisha are?
At least until the fate drama. Where they seemed to have a “ooooh. We did make her LATINA didn’t we...”
Like they’ve seemed much more SURE of her ethnicity since. Like they’ve only just realised it😭
Yeah... I think you are right on, actually. I remember a video (possibly bts footage from the first film) where Straffi was talking about each of the girls, and the way he spoke about making Flora latina felt only like he wanted to give her a particular 'look' rather than an identity.
I've found the video: th-cam.com/video/2bB3hSfeghs/w-d-xo.htmlfeature=shared (at around 1:34 he says: "Then there is Flora, who I wanted to be a young Jennifer Lopez, [...] hispanic, sunny, romantic, beautiful...)
They're aliens, they don't have human races.
Thank you for making this video! I was really looking forward to it, the fairy couture artstyle has always been very intriguing to me and I found a little hard to actually get more info about it online. Also...could you please talk more about Maya fox? I know it might be a bit off topic since the channel is more Winx related, but just like the fairy couture style I can never get much information about the franchise itself t-t
I'm really happy you found it interesting! Definitely look through Winx Club All's blog for more about Fairy Couture as she has archived articles about it as well, if you want more.
The next Winxplained episode will be about Maya Fox 😊 Even though it's not Winx, it still gives us interesting insight into Rainbow as a company and it's interesting to compare brand strategy and target demographic. I'm thinking around late October - November? So the Fate video will be first.
@@talkytilki Absolutely cannot wait for it! I first saw some art of her earlier this year iirc and ever since I've been very intrigued by the character! Best wishes 💜💜💜
There's something about how the ood fairy coture art style before it's integration into the main show's promotional artwork, that always kinda felt uncanny to me I don't know how to describe it but the way the hair's draw and the clothes they look photoshopped on😭
An excellent video
how cool, I still have 2 perfumes of bloom I have never opened lol, when I was a kid I was so confused if it was winx or not, since it looked pretty different from winx club, I might have had other stuff winx fairy couture, but I forgot what it was, I was still a kid after all.
Your pronunciation of "couture" 🥰
💖😍 Like how u say couture
My inner Rarity jumped out...
I hated that they would start using it as an official artstyle for stock art. Season 7 especially. Try finding traditional 2D stock art for e.g Butterflix or their casual outfits
i love your videos 🩷
Thank you 🥺💗
I couldn't quite properly catch the name at 4:16 , whats the comic from? i'd love to read up on it
Maya Fox 2012! It was a crime and supernatural book and comic series from between 2008-2012. I have a couple of shorts about it if you're interested: th-cam.com/users/shortsrNKEBGPpzyM?feature=share
@@talkytilki bless your soul & thank you so much for the reply !! i'm definitely giving those a watch
I think winx should somehow address the whitewashing
I think the whole represention thing is really just marketing, they did it when it was relevant and a good way to market, and stopped when it became irrelevant. Now it's relevant again so they're doing it again in the reboot, once it goes out of fashion again, since trends cycle like that, they'll drop it again. They initially did it in 2004 to compete with all the American shows that did the same, as well as W.i.t.c.h.
Personally, I don't care about this topic at all, and to me, Aisha still looks black in s8 and WoW, and dare I say, Flora looks better with the lighter skin. They're all aliens from planets in outer space, they don't have real human races so who cares what skintone they have? Sometimes I'd rather they have blue, pink, purple, green, red etc. skintones instead for this annoying topic to be dropped, but I know people would be reaching and claiming purple skin=black or something like in the MLP fandom and insist a character is black because they're purple. I'll never understand this obsession with race in media people have. I grew up watching western shows with white characters who have colorful hair or asian shows with obviously asian characters and I grew up alright. They were fun and interesting because they looked different and had different lives. When a local show with someone who looks like me and has a similar life would air, I'd just change the channel because it's boring and I already know what it's like, why should I watch it? But I guess people who want that are ones who are actually disconnected from their cultural identity and refuse to assimilate with the majority culture instead, so they develop some insecurity and inferiority complex over it, feeling unseen and left out if they're not included in the most literal sense possible. In that case, it's on them to deal with their emotions rather than on media to walk on eggshells to please them.
And the characters are owned by rainbow so they're free to modify their literal OCs as much as they want, they're just drawings, Rainbow doesn't owe anyone representation and to fulfill their demands. I'd understand the complaints if the designs were straight up ugly, but they aren't. Nothing's wrong with them at all.
I see what you are saying, and yes, Winx are ultimately aliens.
I think one of the advantages in the vagueness of Flora’s ethnic background in the show (I assume this comment is in reference to another comment about that) was that many people saw themselves in her. I lived in different places as a child, and I noticed that she was interpreted differently based on where I was. So people of different backgrounds found they could identify with her, and the fact that she was ‘meant to be latina’ wasn’t really common knowledge. That only came to the forefront during the marketing of the first film: When Winx was first coming out, instead of those American celebrities, marketing material said that they were based on “universally appealing pop-groups like All Saints and the Spice Girls”. Perhaps there is more of a conversation to be had about that.
However, I think that the argument against ethnic ambiguity in terms of media and representation exists, because so often companies maliciously use it as a cop-out of genuine diversity. Diversity in media is so important so that people (esp. children) can see all people’s place in the world affirmed. It’s not just about seeing your own ethnicity/gender/sexuality, it’s about other people seeing it too, and understanding that all kinds of people exist, and have the right to exist. Ethnically ambiguous characterisations can also narrow and even take away opportunities for actors of different backgrounds, for example, what happened with Fate. I think when people react to this, they are reacting to the bigger problem, not just Winx in isolation, although I would also understand if some might think it is misplaced in this case, as Winx characters are ultimately aliens from different planets, rather than meant to correspond exactly with Earth people.
In the case of Flora though, Rainbow whilst trying to enter the American market, made a huge deal out of her being based on Jennifer Lopez. People were then really excited for Latina representation, especially as Flora represents a different archetype than is commonly portrayed in American media. So, I think it is valid for people to become frustrated and feel let down by the handling of her since, when in all but words, Rainbow made such a promise. For Rainbow to not understand what this would have meant to their new audience, at the very least, reflects poor discernment on their part.
In the case of Aisha’s whitewashing, that’s also a lot bigger than Winx, and has a lot to do with historical and present hurts about representations of black women in media, what kind of characterisations are allowed to appear and what is limited, pain and discrimination based on colourism, Eurocentric beauty ideals… All of these intersect and cause genuine harm, because what is viewed in media becomes entrenched in culture. Having dark skin representation especially in children’s media is really important. I don’t think the reaction would have been as severe if Aisha was always lighter skinned, but instead they had one kind of representation, and then took it away. That’s the main issue.
I think you’re right that sometimes fandoms can be asinine in their fanon interpretations of ambiguous or anthropomorphic characters, and any other interpretation is taken almost as a sign of personal evil, however personally, I don’t really think that applies to the Winx fandom - in this case, it was the company who created such expectations around the characters. They could have chosen to emphasise the extra-terrestrial origins of their characters, but they didn’t.
I agree that the whole corresponding celebrities gimmick was just a marketing tactic, and Rainbow didn’t originally mean much by it. (In fact, if I remember correctly Straffi admits that they actually matched them up with popular celebrities AFTER they had decided on the final designs, by surveying young girls for their favourite pop culture figures.) However, they’ve put so much emphasis on it since 2011 that I really think they’ve made their bed, and now they have to sleep in it. They don’t get to slither out, when they were boasting about how ahead of their time they were in terms of representation. Think of it just as false advertising and people holding a company and product accountable to its product description, if it helps.
@talkytilki thank you for seeing this from my pov. I never did the identitying with a character based on looks and culture thing so this topic is always weird to me. I only care about the experience and personality of the character, instead.
If you want to see that annoying behavior in the winx fandom, just spend a few hours scrolling the subreddit lol, it's filled with the prim to people who unironically think the character are those ethnicities and there's no debating it. Every once in a while someone would post what I'd call racebait and big infights will break in the comments about it, and lots of accusations of racism will be thrown at people randomly.
Also, I always had a feeling the celebrities thing was a lie, thank you for confirming it lol. And you're right that's it's partially Rainbow's fault for dabbling in this kind of thing to appeal to Americans to start with. Americans think their issues apply to the whole world somehow and get upset when someone doesn't get it, and Rainbow, being Italian, really digged their grave with this when they don't get it at all. I'm already seeing people crying about Stella's skin tone in the reboot because "she's supposed to be tan because she's a white latina" or something??? And they always depict her as dark in fan arts, as dark as Flora's original skin tone, then go and darken Flora and Aisha to compensate and fix it, and make Aisha extremely dark, like charcoal, because that's the "right" way of being black or something. They also want Musa to be the shortest because ofcourse, east asian=short. They just circled back to racism at this point, and I think pandering to crazy people like this is a really stupid idea, they're obviously not into the show for the plot or characters' writing, only for aesthetics and "representation".
I always preferred the way older shows, pre-2010s, handled representation without it being too on the nose or a marketing strategy, but nowadays it's just a redflag at this point and means the show is made by annoying people with social media discourse brainrot for annoying people with social media discourse brainrot. It's all so exhausting. I just want a good story and some fun characters and cute art, is that too much to ask for? But nooo everything needs to be activism and political. :( representation is ruined because of this and I can't stand it anymore even though I used to appreciate it as a kid because it got me into western and Asian cultures.
Neat video
It was cool learn more about Winx Fairy Couture
😙