How did THIS become a time of sheer joy, in which I was willing the tyre guy to take his time rescuing me?
The hard shoulder of the M25 with a flat tyre is not the best start to a Saturday evening, especially when the RAC guy discovers the spare wheel you’ve had stashed in the boot for eight years doesn’t even belong to – or therefore fit – your car.
I’d had a brilliant day, the first of three on a tea-charged corsetry course (www.moodycorsetry.co.uk), and had foregone having a wee before I left because I figured I could last the 50 minute drive home, even after several cups of tea throughout the afternoon.
Ten minutes in, a lot of smoke from my front nearside wheel announced I should have gone when I’d had the chance. When the RAC’s ETA was two hours, I hopped a fence, scrambled up a bank and found some trees where I could cop a squat in the rain and have a good think about my choices.
A 90 minute wait for the RAC bled into a short 45mph limp on a neon orange loaned wheel and a further hour’s wait for the emergency tyre man at Cobham Services. Blue and shivering from the cold, I parked as far as I could from the backfiring, revving engines of a boy racer meet and tried to find consolation in an overpriced chai latte.
But then the cavalry arrived. Not the tyre man, but my beautiful bride Charlotte dropped her full wedding album. And oh my goodness, I could have sat shivering in the middle of that boy racer meet all night. Because LOOK.
I hope you enjoy these pics as much as I did, wherever you are to see them.
Couple: Charlotte & Sam (@worldof_char and @sarnuel) 26/07/25 The longest veil I’ve ever made, at five metres (just under 200″), with bespoke embroidery and trimmed with exquisite appliquèd lace.
The Three Fs to consider to make sure your dream wedding dress doesn’t become a neurospicy nightmare
Shopping for – and wearing – a wedding dress is a whole new experience for most people. Seeing yourself as The Bride for the first time can be surreal and overwhelming, and you’re often in and out of several dresses in quick succession. Consequently, you might not have time or emotional energy to notice the little things that will make wearing one for a whole day uncomfortable.
Add the sensory issues that often come with neurodiversity into the mix and the dress of your dreams can end up feeling like a nightmare.
But not all dresses are created equal, and there are some common culprits to look out for when you’re choosing your dress, mainly around the three Fs: Fabrics, Finishes and Fit. Feel free to add your own F if you hit all three.
FABRICS
I’m not just talking about synthetic fabrics (polyester, nylon, etc) that make you sweat here, as you’ll be hard pressed to find a dress made from 100% breathable, natural fibres (e.g. silk, cotton, viscose, etc) in most boutiques. Sometimes you get a choice, especially if you’re going bespoke. Get samples you can take away and experiment with if you can.
Lace
Lace can be scratchy (particularly the stiffer kind in direct contact with your skin), or conversely tickly – I’m looking at you, eyelash lace necklines. Eyelash lace can usually be trimmed down to the solid edge if necessary so don’t let it put you off an otherwise perfect dress.
Tickle tickle! Beautiful and delicate, eyelash lace can also be a bit tickly for some people.
Check which parts of your body will be in contact and whether it will irritate you.
Feathers
Another tickly one is feathers. Even if you’re not outright allergic, feathers can tickle mot just your skin but the inside of your nose (they shed too). There can also be sharp bits.
Sequins
One of my biggest bugbears with wedding dress manufacturers is the placement of beads and – worse – sequins under the arms of sleeveless dresses where they will chafe the delicate skin of bare inner arms. Have you ever felt the edge of a sequin? Those buggers are SHARP. Now imagine rubbing your arm on clusters of them all day and night.
Even if they’re not right up in your armpit, check what your wrists will be brushing against if your dress has beads and sequins on the skirt. If they’re somewhere annoying, you can have them removed. Alternatively, if they’re too pretty to ditch, have your seamstress cover them in a soft sheer fabric such as tulle or organza so you can still have the sparkle without the scratching. If you’re open to a bit of a restyle, you could even add sleeves or gloves to protect your skin.
Glitter
A huge trend at the moment is glitter, especially on tulle, although I’ve also seen it on satin and even lace (and I’ve actually made two wedding dresses using a black glitter lace satin!). By its nature, it has a slightly rough texture so I usually recommend putting it under a layer of tulle rather than have it as the top layer of a dress. It will still sparkle but feel softer.
Veils are different as they’re not in constant contact with your skin.
FINISHES
It’s not just the fabrics themselves that can cause an issue, but what you do with them and where on the dress you wear them.
Stitched tulle
For example, even the softest tulle becomes a serious rash-inducing irritant when it’s folded and stitched, especially for a neckline; it makes every tiny fibre an inflexible ridge that RUBS. I see red skin under a lot of illusion panels where the edge has been turned under and sewn. It’s usually better to leave the edge raw and unstitched; I cut some away for a bride during her fitting this week and the relief was immediate.
Some tulle necklines and arm scyes (that’s the technical term for an armhole) have to keep their stitched edge to prevent them stretching out of shape during wear. In these cases, ask your seamstress to put something underneath the narrow hem to protect your skin. Depending on the dress, I’ve used iron-on soft interfacing (often seen on the back of embroidery on T-shirts for example) organza ribbon and clear silicon tape. Sometimes we need to experiment a bit to find what will work best for the dress and the wearer.
Unstitched tulle
It also depends on where on the dress they are. Unfinished stiff-tulle hems (usually in underskirts and inner dress layers) feel like barbed wire if they come into contact with the tops of your feet. When I get in a hot shower after a day when I’ve worked on stiff tulle, my hands and forearms suddenly sear from all the micro abrasions and scratches they’ve sustained from the edges.
Enclosing them in a rolled hem or encasing them in bias binding protects skin. I do this as standard on all my bespoke dresses, but not all manufacturers do (the last Vera Wang dress I altered didn’t; also polyester BTW), or they’re inconsistent with it (some Wed2b dresses have their stiff tulle hemmed, others don’t)
The raw edge of stiff tulle
Boning
Not quite a fabric, but an essential component of many wedding dresses is boning (stop sniggering at the back). It shouldn’t be uncomfortable but check where it finishes at the bottom to make sure it’s not digging in your tummy, hips or the tops of your legs, especially when you sit. I’ve had to shorten bodice bones for many people, especially wheelchair users.
Need a light boning, anyone? Fnarrrr
Smells
Smells might not be the first thing wedding dresses make you think of, but have a good sniff when you’re trying them on or choosing fabrics. Some manufacturers spray fabrics with chemicals that have a distinctive smell that not everyone can tolerate. Some have a sickly sweet smell and others more unpleasant odour of fish mixed PVA glue.
Cheap stiff tulle seems to be a repeat offender here. I once had to leave some outside (literally on the washing line) for two months before I could tolerate it inside, even after machine washing it twice. The smell still hadn’t completely gone so I gave up on it and invested in a better one, making a mental note never to cheap out on stiff tulle again.
If you’ve bought your dress second hand or a vintage number and specialist cleaning can’t get rid of smells, my friends in theatre always recommend spraying with cheap vodka.
FIT
Of course, making sure your dress fits well can solve a lot of sensory issues. But when you’re trying on samples that don’t fit you properly, make sure you understand what a proper fit will feel like.
Heavy + strapless = tight bodice
For heavy strapless dresses in particular, it might have to be tighter than you’d like. A weighty skirt section needs to rest snugly above your hips so it doesn’t fall down and have to doing the yank-it-up dance all day. By snug, I mean firm and supportive; you should still be able to breathe normally and feel like you could enjoy a full meal. Wedding dresses are not usually designed or worn for practicality but they shouldn’t be uncomfortable and should certainly never be painful.
If you’re someone who easily feels constricted in tighter clothes, consider whether a looser style might be for you. I’ve seen a dress trigger a panic attack once it fitted as it should because the bride didn’t realise that it would need to be so tight to stay up. She was autistic and had sensory issues against feeling squeezed. When she bought her heavy satin strapless ballgown, it was some inches too big for her – gaping all over and falling down – and she didn’t realise how much more snug the bodice would need to be to support the weight of the skirt. Even leaving it slightly looser than I would normally to accommodate her sensitivities (she explained them to me at our first appointment), it still felt too restrictive for her.
THE GOOD STUFF
I would love to be able to provide a definitive list of Fabrics, Finishes and Fits that won’t cause sensory issues. As we know though, if you know one neurospicy person you know one neurospicy person. Everyone’s needs, likes, dislikes and sensitivities are different, just as every dress will be different. Satin is lovely and smooth and could be a safe bet for many but it can be heavy and people like my daughter hate the sound and feel of someone running their nails on it. Most things are surmountable but might need more budget for alterations.
What I’m hoping to achieve here is to give some things to consider when choosing a wedding dress, whether that’s in a boutique, creating something bespoke or buying second hand.
Because I don’t ever again want to see someone’s face as they realise at their final fitting that they’ve made a mistake in their dress choice.
I attended a real-life, actual wedding yesterday, something I don’t usually get to do. I was officially off-duty. But.
I couldn’t help myself. I intercepted a bridesmaid between the ceremony and photos with, “Honey, we need to hide your bra before the pics.” She looked a little startled – we’d never met, and she’d just got off a 10-hour flight from British Columbia – and made a swift exit.
“You just made that bridesmaid run off crying,” my husband said as he rejoined me. Just as I panicked that he might not be joking, the bridesmaid reappeared with a tin of body tape.
While we secured the neckline of her peach dress to her décolleté to conceal her black bra, I apologised for my temeritous accost while she explained that she’d somehow forgotten to pack a matching bra for her whistle-stop 24 hours in Oxford for her friends’ wedding. She also reassured me that I had not actually made her cry, only run off to retrieve the tit tape.
Later, at the reception, I noticed the bride’s sequinned spaghetti strap was twisted on her left shoulder as she chatted to other guests. I’d only met her once previously, several years ago, but before I could remind myself of this, I’d reached out from behind her and run my finger under it to smooth it back out.
Argh, what if it was meant to be twisted because it was too long otherwise, or some other reason I hadn’t though of?
Fortunately, it was all OK, and the bride (and bridesmaid) thanked me.
So, was I out of line? Is it a bridal dressmaker thing or even just a mum thing? Case in point, I’m also a sucker for tucking in strangers’ protruding clothing labels when I see them.
Or is it a neurospicy obsession with the rules and making sure everything is as it should be, just as I still can’t resist correcting a grammatical solecisim?
Incidentally, we also sang Amazing Grace during the service, and I had to edit the fourth stanza.
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:
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
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.
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.
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.
I just posted some pics of a veil I made for a bride, Kira, getting married today in Sydney. Seconds later, I saw she had published a video on Instagram of her (still in her veil and wedding dress) and her husband from an hour previously, STRANDED in the middle of nowhere.
I can’t (and won’t) post Kira’s video because of her privacy settings but it seems that they had switched their accommodation some time ago, but no-one told their driver. By the time they realised they were at the wrong cottage – because it was locked and no-one was around – the driver was gone.
And there was no phone reception. The video shows John some distance away down the shiny wet road trying to find a bar of network to call for rescue.
“I’m not happy,” Kira stoicly comments, adding that this isn’t quite the wedding night she had imagined.
In the time it’s taken me to type, they have posted an update from their actual accommodation, so I’m pleased to report that they have been rescued from the arse-end of the outback. However, despite it being a lukewarm autumn night, they arrived to find the aircon on full blast.
Seeking refuge from the frigid room in a nice hot shower, they’ve discovered only cold water streaming from every tap.
I’m sure they’ll think of something, but what a start to married life! The best is yet to come. Or at least it had bloody better.
Kira’a bespoke Australian wildflower embroidered veil featuring the couple’s initials and wedding date
“We recently attended a wedding and the bride wore THE DRESS I brought to you a few months ago. I could have screamed!!”
So began an email from one of my brides whose dress I’m altering later this year. Imagine. You’ve just spent more money than you’ve ever spent on one item of clothing that you’ll probably only wear once, on arguably the most significant day in your life with all eyes on you… and someone has beaten you to it.
I imagine the feeling must be similar to that felt by Captain Scott’s Antarctic party when it finally ended the near 900 mile expedition at the South Pole over a year after setting out, only to find a note from their rival Norwegians informing them they’d beaten them to it by 35 days. But without the prospect of imminent death from hypothermic exposure.
You get me. Edward Adrian Wilson, Robert Falcon Scott, Lawrence Oates, Henry Robertson Bowers (photo credit) and Edgar Evans at the South Pole.
Shop closures reduce choice
The closure of many traditional bridal boutiques – all but one within three miles of me in the last few years – is limiting choice for brides so the chances of buying the same dress as a friend or relative has increased.
Brides usually come to me for bespoke dresses because they have a good idea of what they want but it doesn’t exist in boutiques. A secondary reason is that they want the peace of mind that no-one could possibly have the same dress (or whatever) as them. But I digress.
This bride is actually the third customer I’ve had in this predicament, although hers was all the more galling because the dress in question was already the third one she’d bought and had to return. The silver lining is that she now has a new dress, completely different, but absolutely stunning, and we’re working on incorporating some of the meaningful details she loved.
Each of my other brides handled the predicament differently. The first asked me to completely restyle the back of her dress, removing most of it and dropping the flare point of her fit-and-flare skirt section (below). That made it sufficiently different from the bride with the same dress, plus there wasn’t a lot of crossover of guests attending each wedding.
The other bride’s dress doppelganger was closer to home: her new sister-in-law. This meant that a lot of guests – my customer’s entire family – would attend both weddings.
However, she decided to wear her dress anyway. You know how people complain that wedding dresses look completely different on the model? My bride reasoned that their different body types, flowers and accessories would make enough of a change that not many people would notice, and she didn’t mind too much if they did.
My lovely friend Alex shared photos of her brother’s wedding last week, featuring the happy couple flanked by male family members clutching bouquets of broccoli.
Groom David, his twin Miles (second from left) and father (far right) with their broccoli bouquets made by the bride.
It seems to be a growing trend in Asia. Alex’s new sister-in-law YaChun Yang (aka Allie) had seen a YouTuber in her native Hong Kong propose to her boyfriend with broccoli, and there are plenty of examples from Japan too (although I never saw it when I lived there 20-odd years ago).
I’m absolutely here for bouquets for all. They’ve only become associated with women/brides because they were originally composed of fragrant herbs to ward off evil spirits marauding for virgins. And as we know, all brides are virgins, because who in their right mind would marry a woman who wasn’t?
Flowers for the girls, broccoli for the boys at David and Allie Wood’s wedding
These days of course, wedding bouquets are more for aesthetics than their proficiency at repelling randy wraiths. Grooms and their parties usually wear flowers in their buttonholes, so it’s no great leap to give them something floral to hold and save them awkwardly twiddling their thumbs in the photos.
Broccoli bouquet with gypsophila and variegated foliage
In Japan, where the garter toss has never taken hold, grooms now have their own bouquet to throw.
And why broccoli in particular? Some say the way it grows, with many stems branching out from the central stalk symbolises a growing family, and so brings fertility to whoever catches it. But don’t let that put you off; an alternative theory is that the nutrient-rich brassica simply brings good health.
The thoughtful groom at this Japanese wedding included mayonnaise in his bouquet in case the catcher was peckish.
But it doesn’t have to be broccoli. Ornamental cabbages are fairly common here in the UK and I’ve seen chillis used in bouquets and decor. A cauliflower or brightly coloured vegetable selection could also look elegant.
And there’s another benefit to clutching your five-a-day at your wedding: a vegetable bouquet would inflict a weighty blunt-force trauma to any lurking demon, should the bride or groom – both virgins of course – find themselves so accosted. 🥦
