A 58-Year-Old Lady Creates Magical Costumes That Can Transport You to Another World

Meet Marina Badianova, a 58-year-old from St. Petersburg, Russia, who’s turned her life into a fantasy in the most literal sense. She sews life into numerous characters, both from existing works of fiction and from creations of her own imagination. So if you’re looking for a role model who refuses to let her own senior years be boring, she’s your lady for sure.

Bright Side was lucky enough to interview Marina and we want to share her story with you.

She started out by helping her daughter with a photoshoot.

It all started back in 2012 when Marina was helping out her daughter with costumes for a photo session, and she really enjoyed the process. But her first themed photoshoot didn’t happen until 2014 (where she was a bog hag, no less!), and photographers immediately fell in love with her artistry.

Since then, Marina has donned dozens of costumes.

Marina has been a Victorian lady, a suffragette, a pirate, a duchess, a witch, a Greek goddess, a queen, a Celtic druid, and many, many more. Don’t even get us started on all the characters from books and movies!

Marina creates all of the costumes herself, from scratch.

All of her costumes are meticulously detailed and serve to enhance the character she’s trying to convey. “I like to invent and create the image of the character,” Marina said to Bright Side. “It’s also important to ‘present’ them well on the set, this is probably the most interesting moment. But when you are in the zone, everything magically develops by itself.”

She draws inspiration from everything.

“Photo in the newspaper, a fairy tale, reproductions of famous paintings... Paintings are just a sea of ideas. A unique piece of fabric or a sewn headdress also immediately gives a push to the imagination,” Marina explains.

Her favorite motifs are fantasy, steampunk, the Middle Ages, fairytales, myths, and legends.

A good chunk of her photo sessions features her as a bada** woman in different settings!

She mostly enjoys being a fairytale character, including the ones from old Russian stories. She finds the unique beauty in characters who are close to her in age, so she gladly embodies them.

Marina has some advice for all the creative people out there.

“Do what you love no matter what,” she says. “If you do something you’re passionate about, something that is interesting to you and you’re doing it for yourself, then sooner or later it will pay off!”

Which costume did you like the most? And what’s your hobby that you’re passionate about?