What is Bespoke Bridal?

Mother's Wedding Dress circa 1980

Bespoke clothing is custom-made clothing. It is not made to measure, as featured by many good clothing vendors. A made-to-measure item is a standard one customized at the factory in certain measurements and details. Bespoke is made from scratch to your specifications. Basically Bespoke is a fancy word for Custom.

In 2015 I was approached by a gal I met a few years ago to design a wedding gown for her friend, Jessica. When I met Jessica, I was really excited, she would be my first client that I didn't know personally. As an entrepreneur this was amazing to me. Jessica had a few specifications. The most important was sleeves and to incorporate her mothers wedding dress into the design.

Jessica gave me artistic freedom to design the dress of her dreams. For people that know me, they know how much I love trains on gowns. For this particular design, I wanted to make a statement. It was certainly a lot of dress. This also was a great learning experience for me regarding timeline for something so grand.


We had almost a year to execute this gown, which was nice for me to take my time. It reminded me of college, how I approached Jessica's gown. I decided to use Pinterest as a form of communication as well, here Jessica could pin things she liked, and as I worked on parts/ steps of the construction, I would upload photos to our private pinterest board to keep her in the loop. 

Muslin Fitting

We changed the design from an Aline silhouette to more of a trumpet. I am partial to the aline fit, however on Jessica's slim figure the trumpet was a showstopper.

We added the belt from her mother's dress and created a new belt for her look. We also found a lace that  we didn't even realize until I brought it back to the studio, was almost the exact match of her mothers!

At the beginning of our work together, I was still using my old bedroom in my parent's home as a place to hold consultations and fittings. Within that year, I realized the potential and growth of my business and opened the showroom. Jessica was patient and flexible as I was working on her gown and planning the opening of the showroom.  

Jessica was my first fitting in the new space which was awesome to experience that with her. I had such a great time working with Jessica. 

Thank You Jessica for allowing me to be apart of your day! xo Sheila

progress

fitting in the old space

fitting in the new space

waiting for Jessica to walk in for final fitting