CUT & MAKE
“Thank you so much for making the most divine dress. My husband was thrilled with it and I had so many compliments on how exquisite the fit was.” Charlotte Webb.
When you buy a couture dress from me, I design the dress around you. You are my mannequin. The cut of the dress will be designed to fit you perfectly and to enhance your figure.
I design each and every one of my dresses, and I also cut my own patterns and fabric too. Having trained and worked in couture dress designing for over thirty years, I use a lot of specialist skills in pattern cutting and drafting and techniques that are tailored to every individual client.
What’s critical here is making sure that the pattern cutting into the fabric matches perfectly for the design and your body shape and is balanced throughout the dress. I know precisely where the seams, closures and other detailing need to sit, to ensure that the cut of the gown is impeccable. The way I draw a line for a seam, where that seam goes, and the proportions are what make the real aesthetic difference in a handmade pattern. Today many patterns are made using machines but all of the patterns I make, I draft especially for every client by hand – in the traditional way from scratch.
My dresses stand out from the crowd because I cut all of them with attention to the proportions of the body and style lines, as well as to the fabric that’s used. They are not just an outer layer and a lining. Instead, I use secret technical process to give dresses wavy hems or beautiful curves that sit immaculately. Often my dresses have many inner layers of specialized weights of fabrics to give the perfect finished look.
I use haute couture techniques throughout the sewing and assembly of dresses. I mount all my fabrics in fuller gowns to hide seams to give the perfect silhouette and bodices are often made using delicate hand stitching around the necklines to give an impeccable smooth line.
Lace, for example, is cut to shape around the dress to continue the lace design rather than cut to fit the same pattern shape as a dress panel. It is then joined by hand invisibly on the dress, often adding more to accentuate the dress perfectly. Any embellishments on the lace, such as flowers or beading, are meticulously placed on.
At no point are my dresses put through a production line in a factory. Instead, my atelier in London are all highly skilled couture dressmakers who use specialised techniques which include hand tacking, hand hemming, moulding, draping and shaping. They embroider by hand, make lace and hand finish the gowns. I oversee the entire process.
While everyone will be wowed by how beautiful your dress is and how perfectly it fits you, you’ll know the skill and attention to detail that’s gone into making it.