The Dressmaker's Daughter's Wedding

The Wedding Gown - Part One

I don't know that I have ever actually told a customer that I treat all my brides as if they were my own daughter, but I do. Some of them might have found this irritating. My own daughter has informed me that some young women find this approach condescending, but to me, it is just nurturing. I'm a mom; it takes a village; and in my humble opinion a young person cannot have too many mothers, even surrogate ones. I haven't made dozens and dozens of wedding gowns just to make money or satisfy some itchy aesthetic urges; I do it because I enjoy helping others.

Now my own daughter is getting married, and I am helping by making her dress, too. I am not paying for the rest of the wedding; my contribution is about four months of free labor to make all the clothing for the wedding. November is the month to make her gown. 

To tell the truth, making her dress feels like another job! I am very, very happy to be making her dress, but I have seen no cherubic angels whispering sewing blessings while hovering over my sewing machine as I work; I am not weeping with joy as I hand stitch the ornamentation; I am simply going through exactly the same set of steps that I go through with my paying customers, and with the same passion to please the bride by understanding what she wants and needs, and by following the same complicated technical process as I do for everyone else's dress. 

The Design Process:

The first step, as usual, was the consultation. I met with Claire to get her measured and talk about exactly how she wanted to interpret her intended design.

Lots of people think that "designing" means drawing pretty little pictures, and inventing something new. Most of the time, the basic lines (what you would see if you made a black and white line drawing of a dress) of most garments have all been done before. That said, designing means not just figuring out the lines, but also figuring out colors, textures, proportions, and all the other visual factors that turn an idea of a dress into an actual garment.

Earlier this year, to get ideas, Claire and I went "snoop shopping" at an expensive bridal boutique so that she could try on dresses. She loved an $8,000 designer dress made of  unembellished Alencon lace with a silk charmeuse under dress and synthetic lining. This RTW dress had princess seams; shaped Empire waist; fitted cups; wide shaped sheer lace straps, shoulder seams, and sheer upper back fastened with buttons and loops over the shoulder blades; and a very low open back that was bare down to below the waist. There were godets (piece-of-pie shaped pieces) inserted into all the lower areas of the seams of the lace overdress with an extra large and long godet in the center back seam extending into a short train. Since bridal shops don't want you to actually look at the gowns they want to sell you (see "New Reality Show" blog published last summer), we only had a very brief glimpse at the design lines and construction of the sample dress, which was not very sophisticated, in terms of construction, anyway. This heavy dress was supported only by the sheer lace straps with no reinforcement other than a skinny little spaghetti strap running from the top of the front cups to the shoulder seam. The lace over dress's seams were sewn with only a single row of stitching with huge, wide, untrimmed and unfinished seam allowances flopping about. Maybe the assumption was that they would be finished after alterations, but the seam allowances on the godets were huge, too. There was nothing special about how this dress was made, despite the astronomical price!

So, I had my own ideas about how I wanted to construct this design, and my daughter wanted a bit more coverage for the very low and open back. We collected several Internet images of this design (I've seen very similar designs from the late 1930's - early 1940's; nothing new here!) and drew in the seam and other construction lines on the photos.

Then we talked about materials. Claire and I could have gone shopping locally for laces, but we would have paid twice as much as if I ordered something from one of my Internet sources. So, I started emailing her images of various laces. After getting opinions from her bridesmaids, she chose a beautiful soft silver metallic embroidered tulle embellished with beads and sequins, with a double scalloped edge that I could remove and re-applique on the dress's edges. This lace was $100/yard, which is close to a wholesale price for an embellished and embroidered tulle.

I am always a bit nervous about ordering a non-returnable lace from an Internet resource, but really, lace always looks far more gorgeous in the hand as it does in a photo. We were not disappointed when six yards of it arrived! It is blindingly gorgeous. For a girl who claims to hate sequins, there are plenty on this stunningly sparkly lace!

Speaking of sparkly, I happen to have about TWO GROSS of small clear faceted Swarovsky shank buttons left over from a criminal bride who bounced a $2,000 check for a deposit and materials about a decade ago. They were one of the few materials I couldn't return to various vendors. I have used some of them on other bridal gowns, and I used some on my MOB gown, but I have always hoped to use them on Claire's dress. They look like little circles of sunburst! As it happened, I needed buttons to close up the upper back of her gown, and these went perfectly with her sparkley silver lace. I talked her in to letting me put some along the invisible zipper, too, to draw the eye up and down.

We decided to use white silk charmeuse for the under dress, which I ordered from my usual New York resource, and to underline it with silk organza for some non-clingy firmness and to line the gown with China silk.

We also discussed the possibility of mounting the dress on a boned foundation. The fact is that as often as not, you can't wear a bra with a backless dress, especially one with a very low back! So, to hold up the weight of the dress and of Claire, I decided to build a boned foundation with the underwired cups of one of Claire's old bras implanted inside of it.

The Drafting:




The Printed Draft


I used my Auto CAD based drafting software to draft a very basic, princess lined chemise and then flat drafted the design details. First, I entered in her measurements, specified basic lengths, and some of the design features. Then I printed out about 40 legal size pieces of paper. All of these I then taped together, and then I cut out the major pattern pieces.



Cadbury likes to help with the drafting!


Then I drafted the godets using my tape measure like a compass:
 

 
Next, I started working on drafting the cups. First, I joined the front and side front pieces along the seam lines and then I rotated the side seam dart to the waist dart.  Next, I located the design line for the upper edge of the skirt front and the cups. Then I cut the pieces apart.
 

 
Then I established the shape of the upper back pieces and the lower back opening.
 

I added seam allowances and cut out the paper pattern in muslin.

 
Next, I transferred all the construction marks to the muslin and stay stitched all the seam lines to prevent distortion during the fitting process. Then I basted the muslin pieces together and put them on a dress form to make sure that they looked like the intended design.
 

Finally, I fitted the muslin on Claire to check the fit and design.

   The fit of the muslin was spot-on! Claire wanted a bit more coverage at the side back, so I adjusted the muslin and changed the seam lines a bit. After marking the few changes and deconstructing the muslin,  I was 8 hours in to making her wedding gown.
 
Next blog: Making the actual dress.