CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — El Bentivegna comes from a long line of great seamstresses.
“My mom actually taught me how to sew when I was young, and my great grandmother, her name is Evelina. That's where the business name comes from. She supported herself and her six children all on a seamstress salary, which seems crazy nowadays. But she did it,” said Bentivegna.
Bentivegna studied software engineering in college and worked in that industry for many years before recently making the jump to tailoring full time.
“I know, kind of a strange move from software engineering to tailoring but it just wasn't the right fit for me,” said Bentivegna. “My parents are probably like, oh, no!”
Bentivegna uses they/them pronouns and self-identifies as queer, fat and disabled.
They know firsthand how hard it can be to find clothing that not only fits, but looks good. So they often make their own.
Being a seamstress by nature, Bentivegna turned their talents into a business and launched Evelina Alterations just before the new year. Finding something at the intersection of creativity and social action was important to El so their business is centered around body-positivity and is advertised as LGBTQ-friendly.
“I work on any type of clothes for anybody, but I try to focus more on the more marginalized groups that I myself am a part of. So LGBTQIA people, queer people, fat people, or plus-size people, and disabled people as well. People that might need special tailoring, you know, their body types might not be average, or the clothes that they're trying to wear might not have been built to fit their body type,” said Bentivegna. “Trans-feminine people who are you know, born with masculine or male features and want to dress more feminine, there's a lot of discrimination against that group of people in our community. Someone that does not advertise as queer friendly, that person's not going to want to bring something to them, because their safety might actually be in jeopardy. And I want to make sure that not only is your safety not in jeopardy here, you are walking in with open arms.”
Eliza Aimone was one of Bentivegna's first clients. She has scoliosis and a unique sense of style. She participates in the full-contact medieval fighting game called Dagorhir.
“The scoliosis is the hardest one that it's been to find a tailor that understands how to fit my body and fitting different shoulder height, different rib lengths, different hip bone heights — it’s really tough,” said Aimone.
It's Bentivegna’s specialty to fit clothes to the individual, not society’s standards. They try to be a compassionate ear for their clients.
“I've never felt shamed at being different or shamed for having, you know, a weird LARP dress and floor length capes with Dragon buttons. And in the past, I have felt shamed for my weirdness at other places,” said Aimone. “It's nice to have somebody that is equally as excited and enjoys the differences of people more than just being like, ‘Oh, all right. Yeah. All right, I guess we can do that.’ She genuinely enjoys the uniqueness of people.”
Bentivegna wants their business to not only have a positive impact on society, but also the environment. They try to use sustainable practices whenever they can.
“Almost all the fabric in my work right now is actually from a theater company that closed down that I bought, when they didn't know what to do with it,” said Bentivegna.
They encourage people to mend, not spend.
“People often don't realize that things can be repaired. And in that way, just like extend the life of clothes instead of just throwing them into the dumpster,” said Bentivegna. “Fast fashion these days has really warped the idea of how much clothing should cost and it's very inexpensive and very poorly made, oftentimes, so it falls apart. So rather than let those things go into the trash heap, go into the collection bins that get sent off to who knows where, you can feel good about your clothes, by making some sort of cute little patch or colorful mend somewhere on the garment.”
Bentivegna said clothes are supposed to make people feel good and comfortable. The software engineer turned seamstress embraces and celebrates diversity and helps people feel good about themselves and their clothes, no matter who they are.
For more information on Evelina Alterations visit here.