Celia Bosman | Founder
Every body be moved, physically and emotionally
For me ballet has been a constant thread that has run through my life… to be able to share the love of ballet, the feeling of being in tune with beautiful music and keeping bodies and minds agile is a true privilege.
About Butterfly Dancewear
The idea for Butterfly Dancewear has been in my mind since I started Bosman Ballet Flow in 2019 and began teaching Silver Swans and Adult Dancers. It didn’t take long for me to notice that there was very little dancewear that was focused on more mature bodies.
Watching people discover ballet for the first time, or rediscover it after a break of sometimes decades, is such a great pleasure. Adults of all ages come to my classes and whilst there is a lot of different dancewear out there, most of it is designed for the very slender classical ballerina body. My classes are for everybody and every BODY so I wanted to create something that all dancers could wear and feel beautiful in.
From the little ‘egg’ of an idea, Butterfly has been slowly developing and finally in 2022 has emerged into the Balletsphere.
Our values
Butterflies are a perfect motif for our dancewear, symbolising the never-ending search for perfection that every Dancer feels. They are also under fire in our environmentally challenged world, so it is important to us that everything we do is with one eye on the environmental impact of our actions. Wherever it is possible we manufacture in Aotearoa, New Zealand and support local businesses in our hometown of Ōtautahi, Christchurch.
Ethics
Made in Aotearoa New Zealand
From the beginning Butterfly has been committed to manufacturing in Aotearoa, New Zealand. In fact when we started thinking about what we would make and how, the decision to commit to the local manufacturing industry was unanimous.
When we told people that's what we were going to do, the plan was met with sharp intakes of breath and raised eyebrows. But we remain committed and we have been lucky to find partners to work with who are helping us achieve our dream.
Our promise to you is that we are transparent about everything we do.
We only work with like-minded people who support fair pay and conditions for staff and we are are united in our desire to see the New Zealand clothing manufacturing industry thrive.
This approach to business is not for the faint hearted, it won't always be easy and it certainly won't produce cheap, fast fashion. Butterfly is all about quality, not quantity.
We are a work in progress and we hope that you will join us on our journey to support ethical clothing manufacture in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Sustainability
There’s no way to deny it, manufacturing anything has some environmental cost.
As clothing manufacturers we are very aware of the damage to the environment that is caused by many parts of the industry; from irresponsible growing of crops such as cotton, to international freight, to the use of plastic packaging.
We are constantly mindful of what we are doing, what resources we are using, and the cost to our planet and the people on it. We are transparent about what we do, what materials we have used and why we have made that decision. We’re always striving for improvement.
Butterfly garments are made to last. It is out intention to create a closed loop system so that when you no longer want or need your Butterfly we will be happy to have it back.
We will clean and repair garments and they will be either donated to dancers in need or will be sold on our separate Facebook Store with proceeds going to The Bosman Creative Arts Charitable Trust which supports all kinds of creative arts projects.
Where garments can’t be re-used we will upcycle them into other items for sale on the Facebook Page – scrunchies, bags, patchwork supplies and the like.
In the meantime, enjoy your Butterfly, treat her with love and she will take you to classes for years to come.
Inclusivity
Butterfly is designed for every BODY. As adult dancers we come in all shapes, sizes, genders, with every ability and lots of disabilities. Yet everybody can enjoy ballet, it’s endlessly scalable, so it’s our mission to make clothing that makes everyone feel beautiful.
Customer Experience
Our mission statement is to create
Beautiful things for beautiful people, made in a beautiful way
We want you to feel good about what you purchase from Butterfly. You can know that we take care and consideration around what we make, how we make it and where we source it from. Our Customers become our Whanau - family. So if something goes wrong, or isn't what you expected, we want to help.
As a small business, everything we do is personal, so the first port of call for any feedback - be it good or bad is an email. We can then work out together what to do.
Sometimes things will be out of our control, like couriers and deliveries for example. But even when that goes wrong we want to know so we can try and make sure that the people who can make a difference know there has been a problem.
As a young business ALL your feedback is important to us as we build our business to be one which is all about you, our customers.
Social Responsibility
Butterfly is all about Whanau. We want to create more than a business, and for that reason we have The Bosman Creative Arts Charitable Trust (BCACT) which runs alongside, but completely separately to, Butterfly Dancewear.
BCACT is in it's infancy. New projects and updates will feature on our social media channels.
