Blue velvet in the making

 
A little making of the blue velvet princess coat which we made earlier this month to go to Italy, Most of the lining is hand stitched in place and I love the way it sits over a full skirt. Perfect for the opera in this gorgeous jewely dark blue.

January has well and truly come and nearly gone already in all it's manic, whirlwind of wedding splendour. It was like everyone set their alarm clocks to start plans this month and I have had to force myself to sit down and do a post. The scary thing is the longer I leave it, the more I am struggling to find something interesting to post. I need to start rambling more again.
I also can't share anything like sketches or dresses until the weddings have been so I have lots of secrets sitting in my studio at the moment! 
Time for new collections too ......................................................

Working the prom dress

The last prom dress for now, in it's final stages of being made. This dress was one of my first designs when I was still on a path to study fine art and sculpture. This photo reminded me of the white dress I originally sculpted over chicken wire with pva glue and nylon tissue, on my foundation course. It was in the first week of my degree that I realised I wanted to make the dresses to wear. 

I then bought a lot of three 1950's dresses from America, one of my first eBay purchases back then and arrived, stuffed in a cardboard box was this stunning white tulle and lace debutant dress which still hangs on my wall today. It isn't really anything like this prom dress looking at it now, the American dress has rather a flat skirt compared to this, but it was certainly a big inspiration. 

The design has taken five years to develop to what it is now, I remember the first dresses were a really stiff tulle all over and with nowhere near enough layers. They were built onto bought bodices to begin with but now we make the entire under dress and corset as the base in silk and then the layers of tulle and skirts are hand draped and stitched in place, carefully shaping the waist and hips. 

It will always be one of my favourites,  I just wonder how it will develop further into new designs over the next ten years, maybe it's just right how it is now? 

Customer pics and wonky blog

Here are the customer pictures again. The basic issue at the moment is that I thought it would be a great idea to get an iPad so that I could post more regularly, get away from the clutches of the computer and focus more on designing everyday.

My first post sent the whole blog wonky so this is the second try today.
The beautiful Mel in Australia first of all in her pink silk cocktail dress for a trip to New York and secondly our organic cotton asymmetric summer dress in sea foam green chosen by Mel. She looks super gorgeous, just how we like our dresses to look!

Next up is Ditte in her silk tartan cocktail skirt. We adapted the silk tartan princess dress down to a skirt with a fitted high waist and full nets underneath  in black. I love Ditte's cropped black sweater with this and sometimes a dress in two parts can be better than one, you get to wear each part more!
Hopefully this post won't set everything skewif again.

A Very Late New Year

Giffords circus 2011

 Wow I really am behind already this year, blogging wise that is! We started 2012 with three deadlines in the first week and a crazy amount of emails. To top this my Christmas week off left me feeling so relaxed that getting motivated again was pretty hard. I became too accustomed to eating hourly and watching Mad Men!

So talking of 2012 what do we have planned? January and February is solidly booked with meeting you lovely people for appointments about wedding dresses and bridesmaids attire. I love bridesmaids, each wedding is a new capsule collection.
An old friend is getting wed in feb too for which I am bridesmaid (i may learn some bridesmaiding skills!) and I've been given free reign on the dresses too! My friend has very thoughtfully chosen black which is always a winner with a bridesmaid!

We have our first workshops at Millie Moon in Wells on the 22nd January and the 19th February click here to book you place. By the end of your workshop you will have a rock roll underskirt to make fabulous all of your full skirts and by the end of the second workshop you'll have a gorgeous full summer skirt in your choice of Millie Moon prints!

I'm taking two hours a week to learn the elegant art of burlesque with Pink Kitten. Providing I don't keep wobbling when I should be doing my sultry walks, (or giggling) this will be a long term weekly treat. It's a great excuse to make dresses for myself and wear them too.

A new bridal collection for 2012 is on it's way and we will be at two 'vintage' wedding fairs (this word is becoming more and more dead as i say it) in Bristol on the 26th Feb and the 11th March. It will be great if you can come along and say hello, there should be some gorgeous vintage (used as the genuine term) dresses about to drool over along with our dresses, twinkling accessories and you can book your hair styled by the amazing Fiona from beehive brides, none of which you need to be a bride for!
These will probably be the only wedding fairs we do this year as however much we love meeting all the lovely ladies and businesses we have way too much work to be getting on with here at the studio.

Spring is fast approaching with another collect ready to wear womenswear collection in the sketchbook. Gypsies, circus folk and pop princesses are a little hint of what's to come.

So for now are order books are quickly filling up for the year and we have one very exciting year ahead filled with dresses galore quite literally!

Off to finish a wedding dress now! Don't think I should have time off again, not that I will until November anyhow xxx

Looking back at 2011 ...

I said to myself at the beginning of 2011:  if I don't make a go of this by Christmas, I will go out and get a 'proper' job and give up this idea of being a designer running my own label. Things were getting tough and I hadn't really worked out what I was doing clearly, along with taking some business advice that meant changing the plan a quite dramatically.

This last year has been the one to define what we do (there's still quite a bit to go).

I'm just like most of my lovely customers when choosing a dress, I wanted to do everything, and design every dress imaginable, but after this year I am beginning to get a sense of myself and my brand to start working on fully next year. It's very exciting!

It's definitely been a roller coaster (I'm going to try and not be one of those people who talk in metaphors when it comes to business!) emotionally and accounts wise. There were scarily quiet times and then crazy busy times which I suppose are all part of running your own business. The skill is going to be in planning for this and making sure everything runs smoothly throughout each of these times.

There were a few tears, and many many smiles, my obsession with seams and old techniques really did pay off along with wanting to make each dress individually and with the best hand crafted techniques possible.

 Katie's dress has to be my dress of the year, it is the defining dress of my career so far and the dress that will always mark a point where I decided that using the best techniques will always be what my dresses are about, no cutting corners to cut prices. I was the dress that made me really beleive in what I was doing.

Anna encouraged me to take part in our first wedding fair which I had been strictly against, but I was proved wrong and it was a wonderful success and so much fun. We me so many lovely people.

I launched my first bridal collection, was on the radio and opened a boutique on Asos. We made some fabulous prom dresses for gorgeous girls and made two ready to wear collections that I will find hard to say goodbye too. I even braved the camera and in doing so learnt much more about how I want the dresses to feel and fit.

The Astor Dress from 2011 Bridal.

We have had the most wonderful brides and customers this year, each has worked with me to produce individual dresses that I have been so happy with! 

We worked on dresses for women all around the world and here at home, for their weddings and events. We met the wonderful Millie Moon and made the pink elephant dress and even made a dress for the fabulous RocknRoll Bride.

The prom dress became perfected, we made some amazing on off dresses and I even taught you how to make your own underskirts on RocknRoll bride.

It's been a really wonderful year and I can't wait to start back on Monday working on the new bridal collection, on Valentines brides dresses and meeting lots of lovely ladies January. Plus I have my first workshop at Millie Moon on the 22nd January in Wells.

HUGE thank you's to Anna for putting up with me crazy ramblings and making th dresses so perfect, Mum for all of the support and super hand sewing skills, Dad for drilling holes in my studio and for all the wise calming words and of course to Wing for helping me with the blog design, being so, so patient, for making me always try and look harder and for being the best husband ever, ever, ever!  

AND of course to all you incredible customers with wonderful visions and all the lovely people we have met this year including the beautiful models, bloggers, photographers and amazing people out there who do amazing, excellent quality work! THANK YOU AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Providing I don't get hit by a bus, it's going to be a fantastic and very exciting new year ahead in 2012!

P.S. I have too many dresses to work on next year now so I can't go out and get a proper job, looks like designing and running my own label will have to be my job :) xxx