THE dress

The hardest thing i've ever made; at least it was for me;)

My original inspiration was an Ines di Santo wedding gown that was way out of my budget. So I decided to make it myself at about 1/5th of the price.  I used silk taffeta in a pale pinkinsh ivory color (15 yards of it!!).  The flowers, all 80 of them, are constructed of silk taffeta and silk organza with glass pearl centers.  While the dress is quite fitted, it is constructed in a way that the only visible seam on the outside of the dress is the center back seam where it zips.  It was very challenging to wrap the the ruching around the dress without any side seams.  Each ruched area had to be sewed in place by hand.  The dress is actually three layers; the inside (lining), the center layer contains the fit and has princess seams as well as the inner support bodice, the outer layer is the ruched silk. 

These are the inspiration dresses that I tried on, they were both by Ines di Santo.  The first Ines di Santo dress I tried on had a bubble hem.  It was actually a strapless dress but one of the trails of flowers fell off the skirt so I pinned it on the shoulder and it was really cute but then she told me the price.....$10,000 (beautiful, but way too expensive for my budget).  The consultant then remembered that there was a one shoulder flower dress that would be in the next week, so I went back.......

and tried on this dress.  This is Francine.  I loved the sweetheart neck, mermaid silhouette, and bunches of flowers at the knee and over the shoulder.  This dress was still too expensive ($5,000) plus I wanted my dress to have a pinkish ivory color but it was not available in that color.  So I decided to make it myself.  It took me two days to figure out how to make the flowers and about 250 hours of patternmaking and sewing to complete the project.  I used these pictures that I took at the salon plus the magazine picture that I found to recreate my version of the dress.

This is Francine in their magazine ads.....BEAUTIFUL!

The side by side comparison.

All of the hard work was worth it.  I think the dress looked pretty fantastic on our special day!

click on image for a larger view

Check me out and vote for my design at seven thirty three's knock it off contest.

enjoy,