Snow White is the new Twilight

Once upon a time there were vampires. One was called Edward Cullen and another was called Bill Compton.

Everybody fell in love with Edward and nicknamed the British boy who played him R-Patz. And while Twilight and the Swedish vamp film Let The Right One In dominated our cinema screens, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and Being Human took over our tellies.

But that’s all history. Now there is a new story to get your teeth into. This is not the year of “fangers” but of fairytales. Next month will see the release of Mirror Mirror: The Untold Adventures of Snow White, starring Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen and Lily Collins as Snow White.

But in one of those embarrassing Hollywood coincidences (almost as bad as wearing the same dress as a fellow actress on the red carpet), it will be quickly followed up in June by another Snow White movie — albeit of an altogether different and less comical kind: Snow White and the Huntsman. This one stars Charlize Theron as the evil Queen Ravenna and none other than the Twilight actress Kristen Stewart as Snow White.

Fairy tales have hit the catwalk, too. The Miu Miu S/S12 show was full of riding-hood capes (some even red) tied with velvet bows, while at the Valentino Couture show it was snow-white lace and chiffon gowns and bejewelled queen dresses in abundance.

“There are so many problems in the world, but fashion is where you can at least dream,” said Valentino’s Maria Grazia Chiuri to Vogue.

Louis Vuitton added to that dream world by dressing up its models in pastel princess outfits with snow queen tiaras, as did Jean Paul Gaultier, Givenchy and Alexis Mabille by sending nothing but evil queens, ugly sisters and wicked stepmothers down its S/S12 Couture catwalks.

“They always say that in hard times people cling to fairytales because they are so familiar,” says Jamie Dornan, who plays Sheriff Graham in the new Disney series Once Upon A Time about story-book characters trapped in the real world. “People take comfort in stories that they already know and characters that seem wholesome. Everything is perfect and fluffy.”

The series jumped straight to the top of the ratings when it aired on ABC in the US and begins on Channel 5 on April 1. “There are already some other pilots in the works that are in the fairytale realm,” says Dornan.

Indeed, Grimm, an American fantasy series based on the Brothers Grimm tales (and, not at all coincidentally, created by the people behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off blood-sucker series Angel) began airing on Freeview channel UKTV in January.

Just don’t expect a happily ever after.