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A word about ‘bridal’

What I’m really thinking when I say brides, bridalwear etc

My blog post that’s currently blowing up (for me; everything’s relative) about making wedding dresses for people of all genders and sexes included this side note about the term ‘bridalwear’:

I use the term bridalwear as loosely as possible because not all of my customers identify as brides. I try to use more inclusive terms where I can. I specialise in dresses and the traditionally more feminine styles of weddingwear such as dresses, veils, jumpsuits and separates rather than men’s suiting and tailoring and I’m still answerable to the SEO gods – I need people to find me! As language, attitudes and social mores evolve, this will change of course. In the meantime, I’m always happy to learn and stand corrected if I’m saying or doing something deplorable.

I want to elaborate. I almost always do.

It’s a topic very close to my heart, my family and my English Language degree.

I can’t do away with the term. At least not yet.

Many of my customers not only identify as a bride but embrace the (hopefully) once in a lifetime opportunity to be The Bride. I don’t want to deny them that.

When I know someone is happy to be called a bride, I will use the term for that individual in my conversations with them and in describing them publicly.

Others don’t. I equally don’t want to force an erroneous identity on them or make them feel excluded or othered. I always endeavour to check. Some prefer marrier, partner, or something else.

When I’m talking generally about unknown individuals, I use inclusive, gender-neutral language such as couples, spouse, nearly-weds or customers.

I completed an LBGTQ Awareness Course four years ago with the sadly now defunct Wedding Business School a few years back.

I’d hoped to revisit it for this post but will have to rely on my memory. Quite rightly, it advocated gender-neutral terms.

But I’m finding it tricky to describe what I do, and who I do it for, without saying bridal or bridalwear.

I could – and do – say I make wedding dresses, but I don’t just make those; I make veils, jumpsuits, playsuits and separates including trousers, skirts, capes and overskirts too. My very first foray into creating wedding outfits was inspired by the bow-ties and masculine tailoring of Marlene Dietrich in the film Morocco.

Credits below*

And I love throwing androgynous flamboyance into the mix, like I did when I created the Skye shirt-cape:

Skye in their bespoke shirt cape. Photo: Liv Lyszyk Photography

But if I say I make wedding outfits or weddingwear, that feels like it covers more than I actually do, because I don’t make traditional menswear like tailcoats, shirts, waistcoats and morning suits.

So I don’t want to waste anyone’s time by contacting me about making them something I don’t make.

And I do want to stay visible in search results when people look for “bridalwear near me”. Don’t even get me started on hashtags. I have to use the hashtags that people looking for the kind of things I make use so they can find me.

How about emojis? Decorative, convenient shorthand, especially where there are character limits. When there are gender neutral options, I use those. If I can use female, male and non-binary together, so much the better.

My Instagram highlight of real customers

For example, on my Instagram, I have a highlight featuring my customers in my creations on their wedding days. Originally I called it Real Brides, which was the maximum character limit that would stay visible on my profile. When I realised this was not only not inclusive but also inaccurate, I changed it to Real Customers, but only Real Custom remained visible and just looked odd. Similarly, Real Weddings became Real Weddin.

Emojis to the rescue. Then I had to pick which skin colours to include (and exclude). ARGH!

Ultimately, I have carved a career out of celebrating individuality. That’s what bespoke is.

So whoever you are and however you identify, please know that I see you, I love you and I’m just waiting for the language and SEO gods to catch up.

*Venue: @weddings_the_boat_shed_salt
Photography: @photosbypaloma
Bridalwear: me! @hollywintercouture
Model: @gabbywaite97
Flowers: @lilybee822
Jeweller: @bishboshbecca
Headpieces: @peacock_and_pearl
Shoes: @irregularchoice
Hair and make-up: @tonisearlemua
Cakes: @annalewiscakes
Mobile bar: @effervescerefreshments

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I need to talk about consent

My last blog post, confirming that I make wedding dresses etc for people of all sexes and genders, received a surprising amount of love for what I felt was simply a statement of the bleeding obvious.

So I hope I don’t lose any of that love by clarifying a couple of points. The first is about consent. When I said:

If there’s consent in your relationship, there’s no judgment, kink-shaming or awkward questions here.

I didn’t just mean consent in your relationship(s); I also meant with me.

I’ve had requests to make wedding dresses for individuals for whom wearing one is – their words – a sexual fantasy or fetish.

This isn’t an issue. Like I said, no judgment or kink-shaming here. UNLESS – and it is a big UNLESS – UNLESS you expect me to play an active role in the actual sexual experience.

There is a big difference between having me create a wedding dress with which you do what you want afterwards, and the fetishised experience of being measured, fitted and dressed in your gown – by me – for sexual gratification.

I understand that I am sexually irresistable but sorry, I’m not down with that.

Someone once called me to ask if I could provide a three-hour bridal dressing up experience – hair, make-up and all – to fulfil a sexual fantasy. I can’t whip up a wedding dress in that time (he thought I kept ready-made stock), and I don’t think he realised my studio is home-based.

Consequently, I didn’t get as far as asking what he expected me to actually be doing during this time, whether I would be there too or be sitting with my children in the next room until it was time to start the clean-up.

There are companies that provide such fantasy dress-up experiences, and I found one to recommend to him. If you’re interested, it was in Brighton but it was pre-Covid and I forget the name. You can Google it. Maybe don’t use your work laptop.

Anyway, I appreciate he actually asked me, i.e. sought my consent.

Unlike the next chap.

I can’t get into the psychology of flashers but this one felt one step away as he forced details of his fantasy on me (and several of my dressmaker friends is turned out), heavy breathing and sneering down the withheld number.

It started routinely enough: could I make two matching dresses. Of course.

One for his mum. Absolutely.

The other for him. No problem.

Because he enjoyed dressing up with her in her underwear and… I missed whatever the next bit was in all the heavy breathing and the sneering.

I think – I hope – I disappointed him by not being outwardly shocked. Instead I told I’d be very happy to, thanked him for being brave enough to share such personal details and that I’d be happy to send him payment details for the booking fee. But I’m still angry that he forced a sexual experience (for himself) on me without my consent, and did so again with others.

Anyway, I digress as I doubt this was actually a genuine inquiry. So, on to those.

Hit me with yours.

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“Do you make dresses for men?”

“Do you make wedding dresses for men?” To answer an increasingly FAQ, I make wedding dresses, veils, bridalwear* FULL STOP. For whoever wants it. Women, men, non-binary people, everyone.

I don’t care what your wee comes out of; just don’t leave any on my loo seat.

You are very welcome to, but don’t even have to, tell me how you identify, what you were assigned at birth or whether that differs now, whom, how many – or even whether – you’re marrying. If there’s consent in your relationship, there’s no judgment, kink-shaming or awkward questions here.

Oversharers are always welcome (hello, kindred spirits!) and the only things I ask all my customers to tell me relate purely to the tasks of designing something you will love and making sure it fits you perfectly:

1. Are you anticipating changing your weight, shape or size before you wear what I’m making you? These don’t make it impossible, but need to be factored in. For example, are/will you be:

  • Pregnant or trying to conceive?
  • Breastfeeding?
  • Undergoing surgery?
  • Taking medication such as hormones or steroid therapies?
  • Dieting?
  • Body-building?

2. What else will you be wearing? Bring everything to fittings that changes your shape, size or height including:

  • Padded bras, cups or inserts (I have a well-stocked basket of boobs you can try if you don’t have your own);
  • Padded pants;
  • Shape-wear, corsetry, binder, etc;
  • Prosthetics;
  • Shoes.

*I use the term bridalwear as loosely as possible because not all of my customers identify as brides. I try to use more inclusive terms where I can. I specialise in dresses and the traditionally more feminine styles of weddingwear such as dresses, veils, jumpsuits and separates rather than men’s suiting and tailoring and I’m still answerable to the SEO gods – I need people to find me! As language, attitudes and social mores evolve, this will change of course. In the meantime, I’m always happy to learn and stand corrected if I’m saying or doing something deplorable.

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Holding each other up

Dressmakers are awesome. I love my network.

Perhaps we should be rivals, but we don’t see it that way. There’s plenty of work to go around and we need to know who we can recommend when we’re fully booked. And you can’t work in weddings and not have at least one back-up plan if something takes you out of action in peak season; last year for example, just as I recovered from Covid, I broke my arm. The year before, I’d picked up brides when a dressmaker friend broke her leg.

We have Facebook groups, WhatsApp groups and Christmas parties. We celebrate each other’s new shop openings, dress designs, birthdays and business anniversaries.

More tellingly, we are open and vulnerable with each other. We ask for advice and help. We admit when we don’t know the technique for something or have never used a particular machine or stitch.

Even better, within minutes usually, someone provides the answer and willingly, voluntarily, steps in to teach what we need to know.

Last month, I wanted to know how to do a delicate edging stitch I’d seen at the V&A’s Chanel exhibition. Unfortunately in that case, it turned out I would need two new machines: a picot hemming machine and a time machine, because picot hemming machines haven’t been manufactured for a century, BUT it was dressmakers in my network who told me this.

Anyway. I’m going to go against the sisterhood grain here and call someone out, albeit not by name.

I’d made a veil a bride not local to me who was having her dress altered by someone else. I’d made her friend’s wedding dress a few years back and included a bustle hook as standard, and she asked her seamstress to add one to her dress. She even described quite specifically the type she wanted (there are several).

When she went to pick her dress up, there was no bustle hook. Instead, the seamstress handed her these three safety pins.

This is not a bustle hook. “Just use these,” my bride was told.

There are bustle pins you can buy, but I’ve never recommended them. Figuring out which bits of many layers to attach them to, usually at the point of the wedding when most people have had a few sherberts, is not simple. Worse, they make holes in the fabric, and my bride asked whether this would happen.

“Yes,” was the response, “but hopefully no-one will see them.”

Pick. My. Jaw. Off. The. Floor.

I want to give the seamstress the benefit of the doubt. We all have off days. Maybe she forgot. Maybe she was rushed. Maybe she didn’t actually know how to bustle this dress but she’a a professional seamstress workong with a bridal boutique. Maybe there was a reason she couldn’t do it that hasn’t occurred to me, because I can’t fathom why she recommended this.

I’m not local or available in time so couldn’t do it myself but, predictably, someone from my needle ninja network stepped in within hours to add the bustle hook (thank you again, Tina).

A member of our Facebook group said of she found out the safety pin seamstress was a member, she’d be kicked out.

Another customer, a tattoo artist, was in awe when I told her about how supportive dressmakers are, and was rightly envious. She told me that her industry was rife with rivalry and bitchiness.

We are so passionate about what we do and seeing it done well. Keep your safety pins for emergencies, not your bustles.

I love my dressmakers.

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Bridebook in hot water

A marriage based on a lie is not likely to end well, so it’s startling to see a purported wedding expert recommending starting a relationship with a lie. OK, not quite a relationship with someone you’re marrying, but Bridebook has just been caught advising couples to approach wedding suppliers by saying they’re having a party, not a wedding.

Screenshot of Bridebook’s advice to engaged couples

Lie to your suppliers? Where’s that going to get you? There’s a reason wedding-related services often cost more: they ARE more. You GET more.

What’s especially galling for vendors – on whom Bridebook relies to fill its own coffers – is that it’s annual wedding report published in the last few weeks extolls the importance of trust, connection and price transparency.

Bridebook’s ‘This you?’ moment

In my case as a bridalwear designer and dressmaker, the very fact that that is all I do tells you everything you need to know about how specialised it is. So actually, if you come to me for asking for a party dress, I’m not your woman and the answer will be no. Tell me then it’s actually a wedding dress you want and you just didn’t trust me to price it fairly, and how keen do you expect me to be to work with you?

Bridebook also seems to forget that vendors have often planned their own weddings at some point too. I swore when I started my business that I would never charge extra for my services just because the dress was white. But I will charge accordingly for additional structure, delicate fabrics, intricate embroidery and beaded details, all the additional layers and the complexity of the design. Because all that is more work and takes more time. Beautiful, enjoyable time in which I’m in my element but I can’t do it for nothing.

Keep asking my husband though, because his business is going well and apparently this time next year, we’ll be millionaires.

This time next year, Rodney

Although he has been saying that for nearly four years now. Oh shit, was that a lie?

Special thanks to Plaits & Pin Curls, Bex Brides, Magpie Wedding and Rock n Roll Bride for bringing this to my attention and for all you do to actually support our wedding world.

Update: Bridebook has apparently now removed the article from its website.

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My black and white balls-up

My black and white balls-up, and the loveliest person in Germany

CONFESSION: last month, in a first-time, heart-stopping balls-up of my own creation, I made and sent a glittering black moon phase veil to a customer in Germany who’d ordered a glittering ivory one. I know. I KNOW.

New Moon: the ivory veil I should have made and sent in the first place. Shop here if I haven’t put you off.

And she had to pay a massive customs charge – €80 on a £206 veil – because fuck you, Brexit.

It’s all sorted now, she received her ivory veil yesterday and got her customs refund on the original veil (and I’ve covered all her postage costs), and we’ve chatted quite a bit throughout the process.

The original black veil arrived back with me yesterday too, with this beautiful message from the bride.

“And even if there was that small mistake – we made the best of it!” – the card I received with the returned black veil.

And this morning, she left me a five-star review.

The review left today by the loveliest person in Germany.

She has been so patient, lovely, funny and kind throughout that I’m almost tempted to fuck up more often. Almost.

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Wedding Un-Trends for 2024

It’s official: the “un-bride” is in. This is ironic as it essentially means that not following trends is the trend.

The stylist soothsayers are stirring their big-data cauldrons this week and forecasting the wedding trends for 2024. Amid the peach fuzz and torn up seating plans, I was pleasantly surprised that for the second year, the crux according to my bellwether Vogue is that formality and traditions will take a backseat to individual style.

So you can keep your big data, front-row seats at Wedding Fashion Week and your cauldrons (but I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth) because I get to see what that actually means in practice. My customers tend to come to me when they have a good idea what they want but can’t find it in the shops – because it’s not something that would take off in the mainstream because not enough people would buy it.

And that’s the awesome thing.

So, based on what people have been asking me for over the last year, here’s what un-briding is looking like. The un-trends.

  • Transforming dress: see Gill’s detachable train and detachable cape. I’ve also been asked for a voluminous plain dress that unzips at the moment of the first dance
  • Not a dress. Jumpsuits, playsuits, trousers, separates, shirts with trains. Mixing up the traditionally masculine and feminine, like Skye’s Shakespearean Shirt of Dreams.
  • Lace that isn’t floral. Have embroidery software, will create lace. I’ve created bespoke lace and embroidery made of moons, text, pets, in-jokes, bats carrying antique micrometers and the handwriting of lost loved ones. I can even do photos if you fancy having your bodice made from other half’s embroidered face (or why stop there? Let’s make the skirt out of all the faces of your in-laws). The next dress I’m making has some of my most ambitious lace I’ve ever made and I am SO excited to show it (and slightly scared about potential legal action).
  • Colour. I made more black, blush (hello, peach fuzz!) red and blue veils last year than ivory while my bespoke ivory wedding dresses were level pegging with other colours.
  • Upcycling. I’ve just finished restyling a wedding dress as a cocktail dress (I’ll share pics as soon as it’s had it’s big reveal by the bride) and have incorporated lace from mothers’ and grandmothers’ wedding dresses and veils into others. Save the planet, share the love.

Here’s to the untrending trending.

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Bridal nun chic

Winter’s Wedding Words: veil

Winter’s Wedding Words: Veil

Veil comes via French from the Latin velum, meaning a sail, covering or curtain. In the bridal sense, it originates from an Old French term for the head-covering worn by nuns.

I wonder if there was an association there with (assumed) virginity but I can’t find any evidence to confirm or quash that.

Shutterstock

The reason brides started wearing veils was to protect them from the evil spirits lurking around churchyards on the hunt for a virgin (and it is a truth universally acknowledged that all brides are virgins). The veil would supposedly conceal her from such paranormal perverts.

Incidentally, that’s also why her bridesmaids dressed the same – and traditionally, the bride would wear the same as them too; the evil spirits would be too confused about which was the real bride to take a victim.

If evil spirits are really that easily bamboozled, it’s a wonder that they were ever considered a threat at all. And weren’t bridesmaids usually also unmarried? And therefore also (obviously) virgins?

Imagine the spooks having to explain that one to the boss.

Satan: I sent you up there to abduct a virgin bride. Where is she?

Evil spirit: Er, well, I was confused. There were seven of them.

Satan: Seven?

Evil spirit: Yeah, they must have cloned her! They had the same colour dress and the same flimsy white tulle over their faces. How was I supposed to know which one was the bride?

Satan: If they cloned her, they were all virgins! Just take any one of them!

Evil spirit: Well maybe they weren’t clones exactly. Maybe they were just her unmarried sisters and friends. Cousins even.

Satan:

Evil spirit:

Ah well, there goes religion. I’m grateful that the aesthetic need for veils has endured to keep me in work.

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What to bring to your dress fitting

Your dress is a good start.

It’s finally happened. I’ve had brides arrive for wedding dress fittings without their shoes or underskirt several times but today brought a first: a bride just arrived for her without… her dress.

It’s absolutely not her fault; she’s storing it at her parents’ house and her dad handed her the wrong grey storage box. We only realised what had happened when we opened it in my fitting room and found an assortment of summer clothing and books.

While she runs back to her parents’ house for the correct grey box, I thought I’d put together a list of what you need to have with you to make sure I get your dress fitting perfectly:

Yourself. As you are, no worries about whether you’ve gained/lost weight or that your dress won’t fit. That’s why you’re here.

Your dress. Obviously.

Your shoes. Unless you’re absolutely 100% certain you don’t need your dress taking up.

Your underskirt. This can make an inch or more’s difference to the length, especially if it’s hooped. If it has a suck-you-in waistband, it can also change how the bodice fits. They tend to sit Simon-Cowell-waistline high so if you have a sheer bodice and/or an open back, nows also the time to check whether it’ll be on show if we don’t do something about it.

Your undies. Anything that changes your shape or size such as a padded bra, minimiser bra, shapewear, padded knickers (would not be a first) will need to be on you when I pin you in your dress. Just remember to take them with you when we’re done (but it also wouldn’t be a first if you forget).

Belt. Especially if you want it sewn on.

Not essential, but feel free to bring your veil, jewellery, garter, and anything else you’d like to try to see if it works with your dress if you’d like and we’ll have a proper play.

Not the bride in question, but could have been.
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How Ambimetric Are You?

Are you ambimetric? The chances are that if you were born between 1977 and 1983, you are.

I just uploaded a short hyperlapse Reel showing the making of one the floral embellishments for my Happily Ever After veil. While fingers, beads and threads blurred, the clear constant throughout all 18 seconds was my scarred, tortured, gouged cutting mat.

The cutting mat that has seen better days

How Embarrassing

I’d been worried about the state of my nails, but this proved to be the bigger embarrassment. And it made me realise what a stickler for inches I am. The other side of this mat is pristine, untouched, virginal cutting surface. No trenches scored by countless merciless passes of the rotary cutter. No fibres mashed into its surface by blunt blades to highlight gouges further. Just beautiful, brand-new, reliable cutting mat that I could flip over at any time.

Just one problem. It’s in metric.

The Measure of Xennials

Xennials – the microgeneration born between 1977 and 1983, including me – straddle Generation X and Millenials, with characteristics of both. Sociologists usually define us by the technologies we’re comfortable with. As a classic example, I grew up with a rotary phone screwed to the wall and didn’t have an email address or mobile phone until I was 19 but I was an early (well, 2007) adopter of Twitter. Then again, I met my husband in 1997 and have never used online dating.

I suggest they look at how we measure things. Don’t get me wrong about the centimetres. I CAN work with them, but only for certain things. Metric and imperial units were taught in school but their use had de facto rules whether we realised it at the time or not. Here’s how I’ve realised I work.

Speed

Speed can only be in miles per hour (MPH). Except for that drunken night in the pub with friends in 2003 when we decided that we were henceforth lobbying for the official adoption of furlongs per fortnight (FPF). More specific to my line of work is SPM: stitches per minute. My embroidery machine for example is currently working on a full moon at 500SPM, only half its top speed.

SPM, MPH or FPF?

Distance

As with speed, my default is the imperial mile. Doesn’t matter whether it’s by car, bike, train, plane or crow. However, if I’ve swum it, it’s metres. I can’t run, but if I did, it would get metres, unless it were a marathon and then it would be 26.something miles; I’ve no idea how many kilometres.

However, distance across the living room with a retractable tape measure is always metric.

Similarly, fabric (and thread) length is in metres, but its width is in inches.

The british tabloid press will always convert distance into lengths of a football field, but I have no interest in the game so this one is wasted on me.

Height

Humans must be in feet and inches. Oh, you’re two metres tall? I have no idea what that means. Except I do know that I’m 175cm tall, because I lived in metric-loving Japan once where I was asked my height so often that it remains one of the only things I can still say in Japanese (Hyaku nana-ju go).

However, heights of animals (including horses, because I’m not horsey and don’t understand hands), inanimate objects, buildings, ceilings, tables, DIY projects, etc are all metric. I can’t visualise a 20ft building.

For anything taller than a human, I am also fluent in the standard british unit of height: either Nelson’s Column or a double-decker bus.

Heel height on shoes must be inches. As luck would have it, the ring finger of my left hand is not only precisely 3″ high but bends in exactly 1″ sections, which tells me much about footwear before trying them on just by holding the heel to it. One knuckle and I’ll be taller than my husband, two and I’ll still be able to walk and three will be uncomfortable.

Literally handy

Bodies

Body measurements must always be in inches. So too must dressmaking patterns, seam allowances and notes on how much I’m taking up/in/off or adding.

Two exceptions: the first is when I have to add a lot of measurements together, in which case I’ll use metric but then convert the final number back to imperial.

The second is that the distance of a bullet/knife to a human heart or artery is always in millimetres or “a whisker.”

Weight

Kilos for luggage and cats, grams for parcels and stone and pounds (never just pounds once over the age of one day) for humans.

Area

Cup fraction for bras (half cup, whole cup, etc), square metres for rooms and gardens, number of bedrooms for a whole house, square miles for anything between that and Wales and multiples thereof for anything above that.