Dress of the Week - The Sweetheart Dress Reveal

And here it is .................. Our Gorgeously Bright and colourful sweetheart printed cotton sun dress.

The dress has cutaway shoulders and cross over button straps at the back, kinda 'sporty' like. We broke up the print with green piping at the waist and hand pleated the skirt so is was super full but smooth at the hips. The fabric feels amazing on and has a great ciched feeling at the waist.

Now available made to order in the shop, please allow up to two weeks for your dress to be made to for you at the studio just like this one!

Hope you like it and much as we do. It's now a question of styling, our pink vintage straw boater is looking good but what would you wear the dress with? x

Making the Sweetheart Dress

Cutting and making the Sweetheart Dress, it may seem like these odd shaped squares couldn't possible turn into a whole dress but get them in the right order and we have one super cute sun dress.  It's being revealed this afternoon!

Sweetheart Dress Sketches

Sketches by Alexandra King

Sketches by Alexandra King

Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman printed cotton, available at Millie Moon

The sketches and the fabulous bright 'Olympic' like sweetheart printed fabric for this weeks dress. The fabric is an Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman print from Millie Moon. We serioulsy find it hard to buy prints from anywhere other than Millie Moon, they make it so exciting and easy to shop with!

The dress will have a full pleated skirt and sports cut bodice with cross over straps at the back and cut away shoulders. I think a little piping may be in order too.

Readers: What would you do with this fabric? Any Ideas?

Katharine's Botanical Garden Dress

Katherine came to me looking for a dress to be designed that would be perfect for her style and for the surroundings of her wedding in April. The wedding was held at the Ness Botantical Gardens and the design needed to reflect the relaxed and elegant feel to the wedding. 


Katharine has an obvious Audrey like demeanour and look and being a super intelligent physicist, a frothy white strapless affair would have not gone down well.  I love working on dresses for such intelligent women!


So we looked at Audrey Hepburn, late fifties designs by Balenciaga and Norman Hartnell and Hubert De Givenchy to get some inspiration. It needed to to minimal, chic and subtle in shape with the detailing left to speak to itself.


People often ask 'if it's more simple, will it be cheaper/quicker/easier'. The answer to all of these is no as when looking at a seemingly simple design every single cut, stitch and line matters even more so than a dress covered in beading and trims that can be very forgiving. Getting simple right is a real art and making sure it looks wow and not basic is all in the planning and placing.

Katharine had been really organised too and bought a dress that she really loved wearing to help with the inital design and had also been to the house of colour so knew exactly which shades and tones suited her.  We found a mushroom/oyster duchess silk satin to use for the dress and Katherine was really clear in what parts of her body she liked and what she was comfortable with. We used the back of the fabric to tone down the sheen and lined the dress in a fine buttery silk satin that is so, so soft.


Antique gold was chosen to detail the dress in a beautiful 1950s lace that I found on my travels. Combined with a French corded lace I sprayed the motifs and clipped the patterns to be hand applique onto the dress once placed perfectly. The contrast worked perfectly in tone and pattern shaping around the body.

 It was really lovely chatting to Katherine during her fittings about dresses and physics. It was the one subject I really struggled with a school so took the opportunity to ask Katharine about the Large Hadron Collider, the Higgs Boson and of course Prof. Brian Cox!

She looked totally stunning in her dress and it couldn't have been more right for her and looked straight from the late fifties complete with the matching nude Jimmy Choos. It's amazing when a dress turns out like this, just made to perfectly suit one person, not even Audrey could have worn it so well.

Congrats to Katharine and Alan, such a gorgeous couple too!

Photography by Neil Redfern

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photography by Neil Redfern

Photography by Neil Redfern

Photography by Neil Redfern 

 

 

 

 

 

Photography: Neil Redfern Photography
Location: Ness Botanic Gardens
Dress: Alexandra King
Shoes: Jimmy Choo
Colour Styling: House of Colour

The Week That Was ..........

A very exciting pile of fabrics from Millie Moon

 My new bag found in Fromes brilliant St Catherine Hill in Poot vintage. There are so many excellent vintage shops in Frome, well worth a trip. This was a bargainous £28 and I've been looking for the perfect bag forever!

The tulle underskirt for a brides incredibly twirly dress.

More Millie Moon fabrics coming up as a dress soon.

Another brides pink and ivory lace, this dress is drop dead Hollywood starlet looking, I can't wait to share this!

Liberty Claire-Aude Tana lawn bridesmaids dress, we love working in Liberty prints.  

And an effortlessly chic silver silk. This is for a mother of the bride and the look is bang on vintage Dior, beautifully elegant and sassy. No ruffles or 'matchy matchy' typical MOB nonsense. 

Moodboard - Sweetheart Summer Sports Dress

This weeks dress theme has a sports, sweetheart sundress feel to it which involves a candy popping sweetheart print from our favourite fabric shop Millie Moon. 

I love the 1950s Jantzen swimwear ads and the ways that fashion has interpreted the Olympics and sportswear. The early 1980s and late 1950s have a similar healthy Californian feel to them with tans and uber chic, body con styling. Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman wearing her transformed 'races' dress sums up the tone of the dress this week, that and a heavy sprinkling of candy hearts. 

Sports, summer and bright prints will be a running theme over the next few weeks, as with last week. Some will be a little tongue and cheek fun and some will be wonderfully elegant, we'll just see how we feel each Monday!

Sew It Yourself : The Scrunchy

Yep, it's a scrunchy. How could I not make one in the surf safari print?

Today the scrunchy is heralded as the definition of bad fashion. Long before Carrie had the 'scrunchy' argument with Burger in SATC, (it's how you tell if someone lives in New York or not, just so you know) has the scrunchy been firmly giggled and whispered bitchily about. For women it may have only had a year in the limelight before being the staple hair accessory for eight year old's in the nineties. 
I will also note that Carrie in this episode was wearing a fascinatior, a pretty bad one.

I think it's time for the scrunchy to return I have found so many blogs and people trying to do this over the last five years. It hasn't quite got there but maybe this is it's chance ..................... Even if it's just to keep your hair protected whilst sleeping.
Full neon print outfit is not required.

Here is how you can make one all of your very own. 

You will need: 

16" x 6" rectangle of fabric

6" of elastic

a paper clip for threading

Needle and thread

Sewing machine

Scissors

Time required: 20 minutes

 1. Sew the rectangle together length ways and right side together

2. Turn through so you have a tube of your fabric

3.  Sew the ends together leaving a gap for threading the elastic

4. Thread through the elastic

5. Tie in a knot

6. sew the gap together

7. And here is your scrunchy. I even have curls which work perfectly perm-like with mine. 

Enjoy your Sunday and if you work out a way to make a scrunchy work for you, show me! I'd love to know your thoughts on the 'Scrunchy' subject x

Friday Friends - The Beau Ties

Photography by James Bailey

Images taken from facebook

This weeks Friday Friends is the coolest girl band THE BEAU TIES! 

We were introduced to the crazily talented ladies at a tweet up recently organised by the lovely Little Wedding Helper at Goldbrick House, Bristol. These four girls stood in the corner looking a little dubious at their 'wedding industry' audience and just started singing the most gorgeous Southern Bluegrass/ Blues/ Rockn'roll A Capella harmonies. No mics just feet tapping, hand clapping beautiful sounds. It sure silenced me.

I'm not great at describing music so here is how they describe themselves.

"Bristol based band of babes singing A Capella! Covers from Little Richard to Nina Simone and some toe tapping originals written by the girls themselves. Sarah Jade, Emma Steel, April Jackson and Kim Fielding met at The Old duke and still pour your whiskeys from time to time!"


These girls ain't no typical wedding band and you would so want them to be at your wedding (or any event) as they would make you look incredibly cool. They didn't disappoint in styling either with a perfect splattering of leopard print, tattoos and prettiness. I have a feeling from their facebook pics that they may do some even more brilliantly style costuming for performances. We may have to get them in some of our dresses! 

Speaking to the ladies themselves you couldn't meet a more down to earth band, they even bought their collie dog along too who patiently waited outside whilst they sang.

Check out their facebook to see where they are playing next. I'm wanting to hear a  lot more from The Beau Ties and if you don't like them, well ...............

Warning: you will get a Total girl crush 'wannabe in your band' fan alert.

Introducing The Meg Dress

Introducing the new 'Meg' dress.........

We designed this for a lady in New Zealand a few months ago and the dress is based on our ever popular 'Sarah Jane' dress with a sweeping, low boat neckline and straps that hit just on the tips of the shoulder.
The skirts are full and tightly gathered in delicate tiny pleats at the waist and the dress comes with a two layer underskirt trimmed in satin to make those skirts extra full.
The bodice is super tightly fitted with boned support and waist stays to give the ultimate Fifties shape and you have the option of trimming the waist with a ribbon belt.

We love this dress and the soft silk that floats as you move and twirl. Style with flats or heels and big sexy Bridget Bardot hair. 

There are so many new dresses to share so be prepared for lots of new things coming up. In the mean time check out the boutique for new arrivals here.