Polka dotted fever!

I nearly did an emergency stop a few days ago, when I saw someone wearing a polka dotted dress waiting to cross the road ! I really wanted to make a dress with polka dots. A big one with a full circle skirt that would pay a homage to the polka dots!

 I went to the fabric shop straight away (after the near episode on the road) and bought a fabric with bold polka dots, keeping my fingers crossed that the client I had in mind would fall in love with the delightful polka dots just like me.

Well ! The gamble has paid off! and I may be soon working on a Polka dotted dress! Its a dress you have seen in my bespoke portfolio many a time as its my client's favourite pattern.... but this time its going to have a slight twist to how I usually finish the hem.. I am not saying a word.......

All I have to do now is to find time in my diary.......Impossible is nearly nothing ...eh..??!!

What a feeling!

I absolutely love love love doing bespoke projects. The best outcome for all the hard work and late nights is the response of my clients. Its really gives me a buzz! I recently started asking the clients for pictures of them on the occasion they wore the dress to . Its really brought me great joy to see how happy they all look and I will be updating this on my Facebook page for sure when I get the pictures . Here are the ones I have collected so far.

The red dress with the stole worn by Lady Anna Marie Brocklebank 

The floral summer dress worn by Lady Anna Marie Brocklebank

The wedding dress worn by Elsa on her wedding day

 little Leah's flower girl's dress

Angel's short lilac dress with swarovski crystals as worn on the wedding 

Its Lady Anna Marie Brocklebank again in one of my creations :) !

Anna wearing another one of my creations!

Where do I begin ....The Reversible Dress

The Reversible dress took quite a while as I had  to rethink quite a few aspects of the pattern to make it work. Not only did  I have to match all the checks (which used up a lot of my brain's grey matter) as much as I possibly could, in the plaid material I had to make the collar reversible as well...I did meet with quite a few challenges on the way .

I won't go on an on about it but here are the three things I had to work on the most:

• I  had to add a hidden hook and bar to adapt the collar into being reversible.(bar sandwiched in the collar tip and hook sewn under the top button) 
• The sleeve was a set in sleeve. It was hard  to make the patterns meet at the shoulders keeping true to the ease given to curve in  the sleeve head.
• The hem was mostly in bias so bagging it out take hours. First you have to let the hem drop atleast overnight in order to level the hem , then cutting  it all around to the new level and stitching it together.

The dress was nearly finished at this stage needed the hem bagged out and just a button left to sew on each side 

The end result is a dress (with a reversible zip ) that the client wanted to wear to a party or a funeral ....or from a funeral to a party ;)..(please excuse the pun)!

Doing alterations with a choice of price...not quality

 If something needs to be altered it needs to be done properly. There are more than one way this can be achieved. Regardless of the amount a client has spent on an outfit, one has to follow proper procedures to alter it.

I come across so many outfits that have been unsympathetically altered before. I am sure that given a choice, one would rather have it done a sympathetic way rather than the most cheap and cheerful way. One can still do a cheaper job, with care to the actual outfit. It does not mean that doing things cheaper will make it a bad quality of finish.

Added centre back seam: this was a budget alteration

When I fit clients I give them more than one option for certain alterations: for example of a dress in need of grading down a size, you can take  in the dress by introducing a centre back seam rather than taking it in on both the side seams and shoulder. Its a cheaper option and It does change the fit of the outfit to a degree when we take a compromise like this, but its the clients choice and the overall effect is not too far of. It has actually made clients save things that they loved and thought not worth it, to have altered.

took in on side seams,shoulder and sleeves.

 The quality is something that should never be compromised on.Simpler alterations can be done without making a mess of the overall finish quality of the outfit.

The zip was redone and an amount was taken in all along the centre back for a better fit. 

The Project ..so Far

A work in progress

 It took a whole day but I managed to cut both sides of the dress. I had to add a cut-line at the centre front and centre back as the fabric was not wide enough to have a double circle skirt . Each plaid piece was cut once on fabric each time in order to have a complete mirror image on the other side. I also had to match the sleeve heads as best as I could so that the plaid went uninterrupted .All four seams are matched according to the pattern of the fabric in the skirt.

Added a seam in the plaid material in accordance with the print

Now I am working on the bodice panels. They need to be mounted on self fabric or fused or both otherwise the weight of the skirt will pull the seam apart . As each dress is like a first sample  it takes longer as one discovers how the fabric behaves as the project unfolds. This is a plaid taffeta pure silk dress with the reverse in pure black silk dupion.

It will take a few days to get to a stage where it will start to come together..

A New Project ! Yippeee

Finally! after all the crazy big alterations this week, that seemed never ending, I have decided to work on a new project.( I need my sanity after all the unpicking !:) and restitching madness.. ;)

I have never use ready-made patterns . I always make my own patterns. Each pattern is like a new baby. I never quite know what I would achieve with the toile or with a flat master pattern which I would alter after draping.(I also copy exisiting dresses by taking out the pattern, there are quite a few ways to achieve this.This project is a pattern taken out from an existing dress)

The  project is a dress and I will put up pictures to show how hard making a dress really is. Its not a very difficult pattern but it needs a lot of TLC at certain stages. With the pret a porter market growing and everything becoming less expensive, I fear that people do not really appreciate how hard it is to make a dress to a high quality of finish.

For now there are a few sneak peeks of the project ...

 O and just to keep you wondering its a reversible dress with a collar and cuffs and a double full circle skirt front and back!!

Why getting a dress made is more costly than something off the rack?

There was a time when everyone used to sew and make their own clothes. There was uniqueness in everyone’s wardrobe. That trend has long gone. Now it’s more costly to make something than to buy it off the rack pret-a-porter.

A dress off the rack, even though,has gone through the same processes, costs less. It was made in a factory and parts of it were assembled and made by different people. It costs what its costs as everything is broken down to as efficient and cost effective a manner as possible.

When something is bespoke the process is just done specialised to one person. That dress is cut and made only once.  It’s a unique dress that only you will have in your wardrobe and will fit only you. A toile is made to take out the pattern and make sure the fit is perfect on you.

Pattern made from sctatch

Whereas a factory can make a few thousand dresses in a day a bespoke dress takes several days and sometimes weeks and months to make. Not everyone can fully appreciate why a made to measure costs more but the end result is definitely worth it!

Copied cleint's favourite dress  by taking out the pattern

Life Never Has a Dull Moment!

Its so much fun to work with clothes and ..yes.....women. At times it could be tedious but really, its good to work with beautiful fabrics and share stories of all sorts!..from the men in someone's life to the kind of underwear one prefers to wear  I have heard it all ;) ..

I would really recommend being a fitter/tailoress to anyone who wants to be one . Its hard work and crazy hours but its also full of laughter and tears of mirth as well. I get to meet so many different types of people and such a variation of stories Life never had a dull moment!

Impossible is ( nearly ) nothing

 So many outfits are favourite in our wardrobes. Some get out-dated waiting for that special occasion to be worn, but I have a solution. If they are worth the money recycling them into fresh looks is not a bad idea. Even if someone has gained (or lost ) weight it’s all doable . If you want frills or cuts or peplums ...impossible is nothing. I have even done a wedding dress when I added a lace mount to hide rust marks as it was originally a Vintage bridal dress

 I do so many re-modelling of dresses on a regular basis. It changes something that was once loved and then forgotten to an outfit rediscovered, enjoyed and loved once more.

Why an estimate cannot be given over the phone ;)

I am often called and have emails on how much something would cost. Although for a straightforward alteration like an ordinary hem shortening or a sleeve shortening a rough estimate can be give out.

 For bespoke its next to impossible ( as a client could be an easy shape or a very difficult shape). Furthermore dresses could be difficult cuts or easy cuts, so for bespoke I often arrange a meeting first as I have to make the dress pattern from scratch.

 The bulk of work I am given, I have found, I cannot give an estimate unless I have seen the item or discussed the pattern with a client.

Every item is made to a different standard of finishing so the cost of every alterations and bespoke(made to measure)  varies considerably.

Just in the case of alterations: I have an example for why I don't give an estimate: Over the phone this would have been just a few inches off the hem and taking in along the side seams and bustling up the train at the back....

Here is the Atlanta bridal dress that needed shortening and grading all along to two sizes down .

 Shortening it required; Unpicking the lace which is mounted with the invisible thread on both sides. It also had three further layers of net and tule underneath as well as lining to be shorten to the right length.

To shorten had to unpick along cut line on both sides .

 The client had lost a lot of weight so all the amount between the red thread marks had to be taken out.

The amount is marked precisely with red or black thread

 Here is the finished result  after the alteration.