Hi, if you are here you probably know me: maybe you follow me on socials, or you have recently bought a costume from me, or you have landed here from Google and you know nothing of me. Hi, again then: I am Paola, the owner of Butterfly Garments, an artistic project that I have been pursuing from 2016 by making at first small cosplays and lolita dresses for myself, and after a few years going towards the historical fashion sector. I apologise if you may find my English a bit strange, it is not my motherlanguage, as a fact I come from Italy and so do my costumes.
I love historical garments, expecially the mid Victorian, Belle epoque and Tudor ones. And I love to study how to make them, both historically and partially theatrically. I am a reenactress, or maybe you can call me an historical player: we have many events here in my town where we dress in historical clothes and visit museums, study famous people past lives, do picnics and such. We also have many dancing events in midvictorian clothes, I love them. The clothes, not the dances: I hate to dance and I am very bad at it honestly.
Picture taken at a midvictorian picnic by a friend.
Soooo, what was I saying? Oh yes, so, a day I chose to start selling my costumes for others, to make people experience what I do, what many people already do, when I dress up. And I opened my Etsy shop. Now I am opening my own website too, my online atelier Butterfly Garments Couture.
This is my first blog post.
So, what will I talk about here? Here are some ideas for you of what you will find:
- work in progress experience of my costumes, how I made a dress for myself, or what sample I do for my costumes on sale. Which difficulties I find when making a new costume, photos, references from antique pieces that I use for my projects, materials that I use and why ( also, if they are very similar to the antique used, or if they are modern variants)
- historical fashion curiosities with photo or video references
- historical figures' life and curiosities, from famous people to less know ones
- photo documentations of antique costumes that I own, with explaination of their peculiarities, style, era and such
- new costumes on sale revealed
- historical styles compared from antique books or museums, antique fashion usage explained
- books that I use as reference and study for my costumes, either antiques from old catalogues or libraries. Or modern studies of historical fashion from professors, or reenactors like me
- small tutorials, etcetera
Follow my site and subscribe to my newsletter if you want to read about all of this and more. Also, I have a Tiktokpage where I make short informative videos in my own language, italian.
Bye for now, until next week.