2025 – Casanova and the Serenissima – Winner – The Casanova of the year 2025

Casanova and the Serenissima – The Casanova of the year 2025

In 2024 during a social project I have been doing with my Rotary Club Hamburg Maritime Motion I met a very inspiring woman in a wheelchair. Daniela lives with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) but is full of ideas, energy and love for life. We randomly talked about her travel to Venice and my costumes. Very quickly it was clear that she had dreamt of wearing a costume and I had the means to make her dream come true. Of course it was a huge challenge to build a costume around the wheelchair so that she still would have full reign over the wheels and that the long 18th century dress would not get tangled up in the wheels. It ended up being an almost engineer like construction out of alloy bars and zip ties to make the whole construction sturdy but at the same time foldable enough to fit into a suitcase and also hold the skirt up strongly. But it came out perfectly. Like a whirlwind Daniela was able to rush over the Piazza and along the Bacino near Doge palace. I also added a lot of lights so her dress and wig would glow in the dark.

The official theme of Carnevale 2025 was “Casanova”. A very beautiful, historic theme the organizers chose. And since I love dressing in male costumes – so much more comfortable and playful, and using a toilet becomes quite easy – I embraced the idea of being Casanova and dressing Daniela as Casanova’s big love Venezia, la Serenissima.

We were a wonderful couple that the audience loved for our humorous presentation and the official jury presented us with an award as the “Best Casanova of the year”. 

So Daniela’s dream came true and we won on stage. And we showed that even in a wheelchair dreams can come true and bridges can be bridged with the help of great people and little detours. 

Back home in Hamburg we also presented our costumes at a Rotary meeting which was attended by the international Rotarian world president Stephanie Urchick. She was very impressed by the costumes and our project which gained a lot of international recognition.

And what is better than combining creativity with a good cause?

Casanova in the world’s most beautiful prison

My costume for carnevale 2025 was a modular one. First worn at Versailles in 2024. I created a  concept of a female 18th century gala dress with the theme of “The hall of mirrors” with chandeliers and mirrors under the skirt and a bed and Louis XVI. and Madame DuBarry standing in front of it on the enormous hedgehog wig.

For the dress I chose fabric that I bought 24 years ago in Venice at one of the oldest fabric stores on Strada Nova. First the metres of dark blue and gold fabric with baroque pattern served as curtains of our bedroom in Hamburg. Then after a few years, having acquired the right “patina” it became this dress. At Versailles I wore the big version of the dress. At Vaux le Vicomte, an hour away from Versailles, it came to life as a more comfortable smaller dress with the long wide train as skirt and a vest instead of gold brocade corset. With this I was able to survive the hour long trip in a taxi and could easily sit down at the table for dinner.

Since I loved the combination of two in one dresses I wore the grand pannier also in Venice but took away the mirrors and chandeliers and closed the front of the dress with silk cords as bars of a prison. Behind the bars I put a Casanova-puppet on strings as the big womanizer being imprisoned behind bars in front of long lace underpants indicating an “intimate” encounter with me, the lover of Casanova. The two figurines on the wig now changed their identity from Louis and DuBarry to Casanova and one of his Venetian courtisanes. So a perfect fit for the Venetian carnival. 

To use the Manteau’s upper part of the costume as a male riding frock, I used the following trick: the Manteau (jacket and skirt are usually in one piece) was made of two pieces. To lift up the train as skirt or cloak came in very handy that year because there was some rain and high water.

The wigs were also used at Versailles and Venice, for the female version as a huge hedgehog with bed, furniture and two figurines and for the male costume a more flat one in grey with curls and tail and a diorama of the Bridge of sighs and a gondola.