About me

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I'm Anéa, and I'm honoured you found your way to my site. I have always fancied "princess dresses", and in early age I decided to become a princess when I grew up. Soon enough I discovered it wasn't the most realistic goal, so I became an art historian instead. But my princess dream lives on in the garments I'm making...

I started making real costumes (i.e. not draped curtains and re-done retail dresses) in 1997/1998 sometime. My first project was a pink dress based on a costume worn by the heroine in the musical "Which Witch". The musical is set in 1537, partly Italy and partly Germany, and her outfit is based on Bronzino's 1541 portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi. My first version of this dress was closely modelled after the stage costume, but I soon became attracted to the portrait, and I got hooked on the whole "recreating a portrait" process. Later on I also got addicted to "Phantom of the Opera", and many of my costumes are replicas of the stage costumes worn by Christine Daaé. Some might say TOO many... But they're amazingly fun to recreate. They are richly decorated, very 3D with multiple layers and effects, and the cuts are very flattering. I love working with Maria Bjørnson's design, and being a fan of the musical itself it's also a fun thing to be a part of the "phandom" and nerd about every little detail of POTO.

Still, my main interest is Italian 16th century, especially that of the north and mid parts of the country (Veneto, Tuscany, Lombardy, Rome etc). Studying art has been a wonderful way of gaining a better understanding of the clothes of the era, as well as reasons of how and why. It has given me a tool of separating allegory from reality, and to gain a better understanding of the "zeitgeist", the thoughts and ideas of a specific period affecting everything and everyone.

I do have other interests beside art and costumes. I love traveling, and as far as possible I try to take an annual trip somewhere in Europe. In 2007 I stayed in Greece for a month and after that I became a bit of a grecophile... Which leads me to one of my other interests - languages. I've studied the Nordic languages in the past, and right now I'm trying to learn Greek (it really IS all Greek...) and Italian. When traveling I'm blogging about my journeys for the Norwegian travel magazine Vagabond.

Many people contact me and ask if I take commisions. I'm sorry to say that I don't. I mostly make costumes for my own amusement, and I spend endless hours and amounts on each garb. You'd be much better off by contacting a professional seamstress, both time and money wise. I've done some very few exceptions, but they are exactly that - exceptions. However, feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the costumes, POTO etc. My email adress is operafantomet (at) hotmail.com

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