Born in Canada with southern Italian parents. I have always been grateful and influenced by my Italian roots and its culture for all the right reasons. Not only for the richness and knowledge of Italian cuisine, Italian fashion , Italian appreciation for the arts and its exciting style of celebrating life, but also for my parents encouragement to “make everything from scratch”. I mean everything….want good food?…cook it, ...want a new dress?…sew it, want to master a sport?…do it till you can’t. You get the picture. Be passionate and follow it, was the message.
I fell in love with creative movement since childhood. Loved to dance around to my own little “made up choreography”, and was thrilled to bits when I got to sign up for Figure Skating lessons at age 9, it became my go to for creative expression to date.
I skated as an amateur competing in Nationals and joined my first professional touring Ice Show in Canada called “The New Ice Generation”. From there, I did a stream of other tours including "Ice Follies” U.S.A., "Holiday On Ice" Europe, Robin Cousins “Electric Ice” England & Australia, live stage San Francisco & CTV filmed “Nutcracker on Ice”, and now many years later, participating in ISU adult figure skating competitions.
Have thoroughly enjoyed coaching figure skating for many years to date, along with designing & making competitive skating dresses, I also pursued other interests.
I had enrolled in a Fashion Design school in Vancouver, B.C. Canada. Such an exciting experience to learn many ways to sew, from tailoring, couture and industrial stitching. Inspired during my training in design school, I had decided from day one not to limit where it would take me and just follow that “passion”. Well, it spanned from having my own sewing business which included customer work of various styles: Figure skating dresses, Bridal wear, Fitness wear/ Fitness bikinis, Childrens wear, Men’s wear, and then working with other companies to help wardrobe teams for theatre, film, and a couple of highlighted jobs in Alaska & Australia.
My college time streamed into “Health Sciences” as my focus. I’ve had many different interests and ambitions to travel down different paths of career. My college time streamed into “Health Sciences” as my focus. I was so intrigued with a human anatomy lab course of dissecting and seeing the human body that I continued to have an eye on how movement should be anatomically correct and benefit us, not solely a creative expression. Upon discovering Pilates, the bells and whistles went off as a recognition to a movement discipline that is anatomically corrective, intellectually stimulating to puzzle out what a subject needs for improvement, and still offer creative ways to move.
This focus for movement and well being has propelled me to certify in Pilates for my own personal benefit and to share this healthy discipline, by teaching others.
As I moved into growing a Pilates career, I knew I also had to create a product that would promote mobility for a pilates lifestyle. Knowing how to sew, I put together my incredible
Viola Pilates Tote, so that we all can travel about in our lives and take our pilates discipline with us in our tote bag.
Elina
