How a Trans Tailor in Mexico City Is Reinventing Suiting

There is a small studio in Colonia Roma Norte where the walls are covered in fabric swatches and the measuring tape is always warm. This is Casa Mariposa Sartoria, the custom tailoring studio run by Daniela Reyes, a trans woman who has spent the last six years making clothes that actually fit the people who wear them.

Her clients are mostly trans and non-binary. Some are getting suits made for the first time. Some are rebuilding their wardrobes from scratch. All of them leave looking like themselves.

Learning the Craft

Daniela learned to sew from her grandmother in Guadalajara. She studied fashion in Mexico City, then spent three years working for a menswear house that never questioned how she looked but also never asked how she felt.

When she started her transition, she kept sewing. She made her own clothes first, then for friends, then for friends of friends. “People kept saying, you should do this for real,” she says. “Eventually I believed them.”

She opened Casa Mariposa in 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, with one sewing machine and a full client list by month two.

Suits That Actually Fit

Standard suit sizing assumes a specific body. Trans and non-binary bodies often don’t match those assumptions. Daniela’s intake process is different from the start.

Consultations take an hour. She asks about dysphoria, about what you want to feel, about what the suit is for. A job interview. A wedding. Just Tuesday.

“I want to know what you need the suit to do for you,” she explains. “A suit should be armor. It should make you feel powerful.”

She builds structured shoulders for trans men who want them. Longer hems for taller clients who always get short-changed. Pockets, always, for everyone, no exceptions.

The Community He’s Built

Daniela’s studio has become a quiet gathering point in Mexico City’s trans community. She hosts monthly meetups for trans professionals, an informal support group that started as a “come hang out while I sew” situation and grew into something real.

She also runs a sliding-scale pricing structure. Clients who can pay full price do. That supports a fund for clients who can’t. No one gets turned away for lack of money.

“Clothes are access,” she says simply. “If you can’t afford clothes that fit, doors close. I don’t want anyone walking through my door and leaving without what they need.”

Recognition and What Comes Next

Casa Mariposa has been featured in two Mexican fashion magazines and a short documentary that is currently making the rounds at LGBTQ+ film festivals. Daniela is proud but focused. She’s training one apprentice, a young trans man from Oaxaca who found her on Instagram and messaged her seventeen times before she replied.

“He was persistent,” she laughs. “That’s the energy I want in this studio.”

She has no plans to scale into a big brand. The work is personal. That’s the whole point.

“Every suit I make, I know whose body it’s going on. I know what it means to them. That’s not something you can automate.”

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