The Snow Queen first appears at the window of a boy named Kay, “dressed in the finest white gauze, which appeared to be made of millions of starry flakes.” She is beautiful, but Kay is terrified by her bright, restless eyes.
Snowflakes are linked to what the scholar Erica Weitzman refers to as the “frigid mathematical perfection” of the Snow Queen’s world. The cascade of symmetrical snowflakes on this dress would have pleased the Snow Queen—but while Andersen describes her wearing a gown of snowy white gauze, black netting lends this example a more menacing quality.
