The Christy Dress. Audrey Hepburn is a slightly obvious inspiration here but I needed to do my take on the classic 50s wedding dress.
Made in a gorgeous, heavy silk duchess satin which creates beautifully smooth bold lines and stays very clean without too much shine in the satin. Designed to be elegant, chic but a whole lot of fun to wear and swirl around in. The bodice is cut with princess seams and an integrated corset inside the lining to create the cinched waist. The hips are fitted with a graduated skirt seam to show off the pulled in waist and move the fullness away from the waist area. This gives a beautiful line to the back and the skirt as you can see is supported by many layers or nets.
Trimmed with hand beading (see note below)and satin covered buttons all the way down the back to finish. Looks amazing with Alisha Petty's Veil.
Onto my soap box............
The beading around the neckline and cuffs is hand beaded at my studio. I adore beading just as much as the next girl, in fact probably more and have bought cheap beading in the past but, when I see complete, bead encrusted dresses on the high street it drives me mad.
There is only one way to bead a dress and that is by hand, one by one and it takes days. The beading the Christy dress took two full days to complete.
So next time you look at a heavily beaded dress on the high street for £100 ask yourself this. Who hand sewed all these tiny beads one by one for such little pay? I know this is the way or the world and if people didn't sew beads they would probably sew something else but beading is labour intensive, far more so than a plain dress for the same price and someone (be it adult or child) is being paid less that £1 a day to do it.
................And off again.
Here is the Christy Dress in full spin!
