Nehelenia Designs
Christina Dettmers
Nehelenia Designs
is an online shop where dreams come true; on the one hand, the dreams of customers from all around the globe searching for historical costumes from Renaissance to 1890, period movie costumes, extraordinary bridal gowns or bewitching gothic fashion. On the other hand, it is also the place where my own dreams come true. I can express my own creativity and simultaneously fulfill other people’s desire to have clothing suitable for all dangerous liaisons.
I am still studying at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld, Germany and will finish next year with a fashion design diploma. I started to teach myself how to sew about 8 years ago because I couldn’t find the clothes I wanted in stores. As a lifelong lover of costume movies, I began to recreate costumes from my favourite movies and soon developed the idea to offer these to the public since at that time (1998/99) no one else did this. So my first website featured “everyday clothes”, corsets and movie costume reproductions. Around the time “Titanic” was released, these costumes were among my first projects. I learned a lot about historical clothing and cut of clothes and started to play with the thought of making this my profession. After I finished school, I wanted to study anything connected with designing costumes and clothes and ended up with fashion design. I learned to draft my own patterns and how to create any garment from scratch.
When I created the very first version of my website, I was sitting with friends thinking about a proper name for the business. Someone threw in the name “Nehelenia” as we watched an episode of the anime series “Sailor Moon”; this was the name of one of the evil characters. The series itself borrowed the name from the Germanic goddess of fertility. And so the name was born.
The website changed and developed quickly as I added more designs and more periods of historical fashion. I am mainly focusing on female fashions; men’ s clothing is done on occassion but still is an exception.
Nehelenia Designs actually is my main profession as I am doing my studies and fulfilling orders. When I complete my degree, I will go on with my business as I do now but probably in a larger style than today. I am also aiming for a design job in the movie industry although I am very content with my current situation.
At the moment I do mainly bridal gowns and it is simply great to work with the brides and to contribute to the most wonderful day in their lives. It is nice to know that they will remember me forever. The brides I deal with are mostly quite unusual people who are bored with the standard white-with-pearls-and-bows-gowns. They all want something unique, romantic and unconventional. The same applies to my other customers. Some have a desire for period clothing that they can wear every day and some want historically accurate costumes with authentic underwear and accessories. And last but not least I am serving the movie costume enthusiasts who – very much like myself – see a movie and instantly fall in love with a certain costume.
I would have never imagined that I would ever be able to make something I love so much my profession. Nehelenia Designs has made my dream come true.
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