There are people who like to dress up – especially in the greater Cologne area, where carnival is celebrated several times a year. Valerio Bonanno, however, he is not just one of them.

It gives the impression that it is indeed a genuine descendant of the Kaiser-era German Empire. Is it his pale face and meticulously unkempt hair? Or maybe the gold-framed and round-lensed glasses he wears, his well-groomed mustache and straight demeanor?

Check out this Instagram post.

This post was shared by Valerio Bonanno (@vlr.bn)

In any case, Valerio Bonanno is a name known to many Instagram users. He also has 160,000 followers and, as he says, his videos have 12 million views. Of course, in reality, the 31-year-old doesn’t do much more than… dress up.

Sicilian by birth, but… Kaiser at heart

Check out this Instagram post.

This post was shared by Valerio Bonanno (@vlr.bn)

“Get ready with me,” he says, like many influencers, while dressing in authentic costumes from the 1900s, which by the way have been immaculately preserved. We see him serving coffee at his living room table, where through the decoration he also gives some information about his origin: Bonanno is Italian, originally from Sicily. He came to Germany in 2018 to study, where he learned German fluently.

Bonanno’s apartment is on the first floor of a listed building in the Agnesviertel district of Cologne, which is known for its many beautiful, preserved buildings – an admittedly rare thing in a city that was heavily bombed and destroyed during World War II.

Bonanno enjoys life in Cologne, where he particularly appreciates how open and welcoming its residents are. After all, as he points out, on a political level he does not support the German Empire at all. “There is no trace of politics in what I do,” he declares. However, he believes that “our current way of life is based, among other things, on the exploitation of people in other countries, for example in terms of our clothes and food.” In terms of aesthetics he would have preferred to have lived in the time of the Kaiser.

Check out this Instagram post.

This post was shared by Valerio Bonanno (@vlr.bn)

His enthusiasm for period clothing came first, furniture and related home decor came later. “Of course, decorating the interior of my home is a life’s work. It keeps me busy every day.” He searches flea markets and online platforms and always ends up finding something “new”.

Check out this Instagram post.

This post was shared by Valerio Bonanno (@vlr.bn)

One of his favorite items is his gramophone from 1917. It still produces a very good sound, but he has to replace the needle after every record. When Bonanno listens to music there, he feels connected to the people who used the gramophone a century ago. It feels exactly the same with all objects. And this feeling, the connection between the past and the present, he wants to convey with his Instagram page – like a time machine, like a traveler from another era.

Edited by: Chrysa Vachtsevanu