Making a wedding dress is one of the most difficult piece to make, not only because of the technicality and skills you have to implement but also because of the pressure and the emotional charge it involves.
I saw more myself as a costume designer than a wedding dress maker but I took on the challenge of making 3 wedding dress with very different style last year.
The common point between them was that the brides were looking for something different, unique, a bit quirky that they wouldn't find in any wedding dress shop.
Every bride is dreaming of the perfect princess dress,
You are supposed to just get married once, and it will be immortalised on pictures as the outfit you worn on the best day of their life.
You want something that fit you like a glove, and will make you look stunning.
Fitting can be tricky as bride want to loose wait for the D-Day. Some bride ask you to make the dress smaller than what they are at the moment but they don't loose the wait they expect and some other melt like an ice-cream under the sun, involving lot of retouching & adjustments.
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| The devil is in the detail, I made for the groom a pocket stripe assorted to the pattern of the dress |
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| hours and hours of hand stitching of the golden sequins here helped by Ariana Davis |
Bride are sometimes very insecure about their body image, they don't know what shape fit their morphology. But when you do fitting and you see pride in their eye, that they straighten up, that they forget their complexes and feel fabulous, you know you won. This is the most beautiful thing in in your job, something that give a meaning to what you are doing, make people feel beautiful and special.
The wedding planner wanted me to reproduce the guest book dress I have done as a performance for a wedding at number 90.
I designed this structural dress based on white themed inspired by Lady Gaga's futuristic dress, origami style and imitating the shape of the folding of books page. For the structure, I integrated gardening netting inside the material in order to create a rigid structure for the guest to be able to write on the dress with a fabric marker.
They asked to the guest stop leave a love message or sign directly writing on the dress and everybody littles one and grown-ups , got really into writing on the congrats book!
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| by Anthony Lycett |
Bride to be wouldn't come to me for the classical traditional minimalistic white dress or super puffy meringue dress you can see in the TV show fat gypsy wedding.
Wedding dress in shop as extremely codify and even champagne is a big extravaganza.
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| by Anthony Lycett |
Kate came to me recommended by a friend because she want a gold sequin dress.
Obviously I though it was an amazing idea before I realise that sewing by hand one by one a selection of different sequins from copper colour to golden rose would be a epic work!
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| by Anthony Lycett |
Jessie found me through instagram, she messages me "I saw your instagram and I want you to make my wedding dress".
I find it quite scary & flattering at the same time.
We met for coffee and she explained to me she went to see a lot of people before me and they were saying it wasn't possible to make what she wanted. " you need a costume designer not a dress maker" for this.
She send me a mood board for the dress, a mix between oriental Indian style and 50s style Dior inspiration, with a bustier with a marked waist and a very bulky skirt with several layers.
Coral colour bustier was made to measure. I find some embroidered ornament in Indian shop that I embellished with shade of pink sequins. The skirt is made of several embroidered Indian sequins sawn together on a metallic garden wire structure in order to create the volume.
A massive bow embellished with beads at the back added to the girly and lady Dior aesthetic for a blond thousand and one night princess.
Jessie told me she had a round of applause and standing ovation when she entered the church. It make me so happy to think that my design can provokes theses kind of emotions. It is like an happy ending fairy tales, when the collaboration goes well and you can contribute to make an event special.
I like the the combination of the colourful dress dress with Scottish kilt as it doesn't look like a conventional wedding.
I think what the bride to be liked with me is that they could go design the dress, make it unique and choose themselves every single detail and I would make happen (as far as possible) what hey had in mind.
For Olivia the idea was to reproduce an exiting dress inspired by Valentino design with embroidered flowers, for a classy chic pastoral aesthetic.
made a champagne base with with delicate lace, and embroideries flower.
I realised it is very important to include the bride in every steps of the creative process, to give her update in order not to go in the wrong direction, to go too far and have to start again.
When so much is at stake, they hate surprise effect.
For example, Olivia was very indecisive and changed her mind a lot about the colour of the skirt, the position and the number of the flowers… When you make a wedding dress you don't only have to please the bride, but the all family environment, the mother, the sister, the fiancé. You have to distinguish what the family want from what the bride really want for herself.
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