Buttoning Things Up: Sally’s Closures and Linings
In my last post about Sally’s custom wedding dress, most of the major seams were permanently constructed. This is a bit different from the custom couture process I usually follow. Once I got into construction phase of Sally’s custom wedding dress, with all the asymmetry and stripe matching, I realized that skipping a step (that I never skip!) […]
Gutsy Moves: Inside Sally’s Stripes
After all the fabric was cut and underlined for Sally’s asymmetrical striped custom wedding dress, it was finally time for construction. I love being able to see all the guts of the garment before the lining is added for a beautiful clean finish. Don’t you? While it is impossible for stripes to match everywhere in a fitted […]
Cutting and Underlining Sally’s Stripes
After our two mockup fittings, I was finally ready to start cutting and preparing Sally’s custom wedding dress fabrics! During our design process, we spent a lot of time searching for the perfect stripe. We finally found a silk organza with the exact width of stripe that Sally was looking for. It had a solid […]
Sally’s Mockup Fittings
After the mockup version of her custom wedding dress was ready, Sally visited my studio for her mockup fittings. This is arguably the most important part of the custom process. The mockup is your laboratory. It’s where all the experiments and discoveries happen. With no risk of ruining anything precious, you get to work out all […]
Making a Mockup with Sally’s Stripes
When creating something custom, there’s a lot of trial and error. Every new design is an experiment and so is every new body. I actually find this freeing rather than frustrating. In custom, you don’t have the same expectations for perfection that you would if you had a set of blueprints and directions to follow. […]
Adventures in Patternmaking (and Stripes!)
Once the design was approved by the bride, I was ready to roll on Sally’s custom wedding dress! Finding the perfect stripe… Throughout our design process, Sally and I both explored options for fabrics. Sally had a very specific vision of what the striped fabric for her custom wedding dress would look like. She wanted […]
Creating Erin’s Patterns and Mockup
After working with bride-to-be Erin in our design consultation and sketching a custom design onto her figure, I couldn’t wait to hear her thoughts. I was so excited when she accepted the commission saying “I LOVE the design and how you incorporated all our ideas!” (After I jumped up and down a few times), it was […]
Caitlin’s Custom Wedding Dress Fittings
Continuing the story of Caitlin’s custom wedding dress creation… …it was finally the part of our process where she’d get to try something on! I patterned and made a mockup “test dress” out of muslin and some lace yardage. The dress would eventually be made using some of her mom’s wedding dress fabric, so […]
Creating Caitlin’s Custom Patterns and Mockups
Once Caitlin said “yes” to the dress… I invited her back to my studio to take some measurements. I take approximately 40 measurements of each bride in order to create custom patterns that fit their unique silhouettes. Since Caitlin would be wearing a corset under her custom wedding dress, I took the measurements on her […]