ANDRADA’S BESPOKE WEDDING DRESS STORY

Andrada works for a venue that caters for weddings and has seen the typical wedding dress styles over and over again. When it came to her own wedding she knew she didn’t want that. She wanted something fresh and modern and sleek.

She had a few ideas but hadn’t found a dress that incorporated them all and so when she came to me we sketched them out of paper and had a look at a few fabric samples to get an idea of the sort of fabric that was catching her eye. The key elements she liked were that she wanted a skirt that was soft but held it’s own shape and had slits so that she could flash a cheeky bit of leg when she moved. A sheer, illusion style top half with embellishment over the bust, that faded out as it got towards the neckline. She knew she wanted pure white rather than ivory and something that had a bit of sparkle without too much bling.

The first fabric she loved was from a beaded lace from Harrington’s Fabrics. When I contacted them they said that although they had the ivory version that they could send to me in metre lengths, if we wanted the white we would have to order 50 metres. So it was back to the fabric drawing board and scouring the London shops for a suitable alternative. Eventually we found an absolutely exquisite beaded lace in The Silk Society in Soho.

www.topfabric.co.uk

In the initial designs we had long sleeves but when Andrada tried on the toile (the mock up version of the dress) she opted to get rid of the sleeves and have the heavy beaded edge of the lace run along the edge of the shoulder.

We made up the base of the dress and then had a fitting where we decided on the placements of the beaded lace applique and then there was a lot of delicate hand stitching to secure it.