This Anesthesiologist Recreates Historical Clothes

History can be something to learn from, something to study, or just plain boring to some people. However, for some, it’s a source of inspiration and a way to unleash their creativity and style.

Dr. Christine Na-Eun Millar is a “historical costumer, board-certified doctor, gamer, mother, wife. Not always in that order,” as she describes herself in her Instagram bio. Christine creates amazing clothes, and especially gowns from the 1700s. She looks at inspiration from those times and creates her unique looks. She is an anesthesiologist by profession and has a beautiful child with her husband. Her family often appears in her photos also wearing historical clothing.

More: Instagram, Youtube h/t: boredpanda

Christine shared with Bored Panda: “So, I work full time as a doctor (MD) in a hospital, so after everything I see and deal with at work, I need an outlet to sort of focus my creativity and my energy. I found that of all the mediums, sewing relaxed me the most. There is something about working with a needle and thread and patiently putting things together, slowly, that helped take away the stress of work.”

“In particular, my favorite images growing up were historical gowns, princess gowns, and just overall pretty dresses. So I started to try to recreate them. I love taking a museum piece, like the green redingote from the Rijks Museum, and trying to figure out in my head how they sewed it together and how the original artist embroidered it.”

“For me, while I love sewing, I don’t enjoy hand embroidery. So I started doing the embroidery by machine. I draw out or ‘digitize’ the embroidery on a computer, designating exactly where I want each stitch to be, and in what order. After that, I send it to Foto to do Perfil de Sewstine, my embroidery machine, and have it stitch it out. It’s a lot of fun to see something you’ve made on a computer stitched out in silk.”

“As for how I pick which gown—oh, I couldn’t tell you what it is. I always have a list of about 50 gowns in my head that I want to make. At some point, a whim or a thought comes to me that it’s time to make that dress. For instance, just last night, I woke up in the middle of the night and I knew that I needed to work on a chemise a la Reine, so that will probably be my next project.”