About us
Neraluna is a one-man firm by Elena Vanin, and it was born on January 2003, because
of the wish to turn into a job certain important facets of its founder's life:
- love for fantasy (esp. as a literary genre), with its symbols and values
- the urge to handle and transform materials, to "make things"
- the wish to express oneself
The products of Neraluna are a mix of research, invention and craftmanship. They
represent the tangible form of the history, thoughts and feelings of who makes them.
The imagery they're inspired by comes from the fantasy genre (novels and movies),
from myths and legends, elements of ancient and medieval history, and symbols of many
traditions.
This is the story...
Elena grew up in an interesting family (to her, at least), and one with many interests, so being part of it meant to be in close contact with many different experiences, from travels to speleology and trekking, from studies of anthropology to deep scientific knowledge, from modern technology to certain ancient traditions, from the love for reading to that for animals, and so on.
Even the passion for fantasy was a family thing, and the attitude for craftmanship,
that mainly comes from the grandfather on mother's side.
The stubborness and the witlessness, who knows?
Anyway, When she was 13, Elena started to role-play on table-top, and aged 18, she tried LARPing for the first time. During those years she started making costumes and accessories for herself and for friends, while at the same time she took part in some local art&craft fairs, mostly with fantasy-themes items.
Done with the highschool, Elena attends to the 4 years of the course of Decoration by the Fine Arts academy of Brera, in Milan. On March 7th, 2002, she graduates, getting the highest grade, with a thesis on the evolution of the characters-archetypes in the fantasy literature, from the XIX century to the present days, through the works by Tolkien, up to the recent expressions of this genre in novels, RPG and LARP games.
Within few months, it becomes clear that nobody is regularly employed with a long-term
contract in this field, and the job offers are generally demoralizing.
Perhaps this is really a good chance: everything or nothing, there's no decent compromise
in sight, thus better throwing oneself in the epic adventure, until there are still some
certainties and few duties.
In the beginning most of the work comes from the LARP people, then little by little the range of Neraluna's clients widened, including also: themed shops, acting companies, reenactment groups, party entertainers, museums and organizations, cosplayers, themed fanclubs, and of course the private people from all over the world, that find us thanks to this website.