Sometimes I wonder why I make one of a kind dresses. For a designer it doesn't make it easy. Each dress is a single, sometimes truly specific size and it can be hard for a buyer to find one that fits, much less the one she falls in love with.

I guess I like to let the dresses speak for themselves. There is something about a dress that just happens that makes it feel somehow meant to be...meant for a certain buyer. I like to imagine someone is looking for just this dress and will recognize it when they see it. Maybe even that the dress is drawing them to find it. Crazy ? Yes....probably. On the other hand, with so much generic going on in gowns, there is something special about a one of a kind dress. When I first started selling wedding dresses I would create stories about the dress, based on the name of the dress. Sometimes it was really wonderful and surprising.

Here is the description I wrote for one of my first few one of a kind gowns. It still seems to ring somehow:

 Cordelia liked lemon meringue pies and fried clams in the same dinner with lots of sweet tea and warm biscuits with honey. She loved gardens in summer and had prize roses she loved like children. In her closet she kept an array of beautiful hats she was too shy to wear often, but loved trying on. Her name was like her Grandma's and she was as beautiful and interesting as she remembered her Grandma having been. Only she was blessed with a headful of bouncy raven curls and soft green eyes. Her Grandma would love how she had turned out !

Making things is really an expression of the spirit and creating is not a tame art. So when you create, you may be unexpectedly making the very gown someone has been dreaming of....really !

Boho Chic Woodland Fairy Wedding Dress

I love the idea of a wedding dress in a simple tshirt fabric that is soft and feminine, floaty and boho chic. I created this one out of a wispy bits of lace and filmy tulle. The simple strapless bodice has bits of lace and soft trim at the tattered neckline. It has the softest linen flower with tattered bits.The back has the tiniest bustle effect with a bit of a train. This is the lightest, swishiest gown. It was a tiny size and I wondered when I made it if someone would fit it.

I loved the romance and delicacy of this dress and spent a lot of time trying to find a way to photograph the white without it flaring. Some of the photos were awkward.

Finally I found a friend, Adrienne, who came and modeled this dress for me. We went down into the woods where the light was not so intense for these shots.

Some of the angles were strange with my little camera then and lots of the shots came out blurry. I loved the contrast of the woodlands with her beautiful hair and willowy graceful figure.

It was so wonderful when a beautiful bride came along and found this dress !! I was so amazed and happy that someone found it and loved it. She sent me a pic of her wearing it, and it was a perfect fit !!

Dreadlocks Wedding Dress - Amazing !!

The second wedding dress I created was begun with upcycled materials like most of my dresses. It had a tiny bit of stretch and I was playing with raw edges a bit more. I created the hemline panel of an easy fray cotton and washed it to accelerate the process. With a piecey hemline, this dress would be awesome to wear to the beach for a shore side wedding in bare feet.

I loved making this gown and loved that it was a bit larger. So often my sizes are influenced by the dress form (Esperanza is an XS-S) that is easiest or prettiest to design on. This time I used my larger form Beatrice which is more of a S-M.

 The pictures were a bit tough to take as the dress had a very slight sheen to the cotton, sort of like a chintz fabric has. It made the pictures flare a lot. This is one of my favorite gowns due to the serendipity factor with the dreadlocks. Looking at the pictures reminds me of the mountains where I lived when this dress was created. Very different fall there than here in south Florida :)

First One of a Kind Wedding Dress

I created the first one of a kind wedding dresses kind of by accident. I had been making fashion after a year of making bags assured me that I never really wanted to be making things that were so soul-less and efficient :) My bags were more funky, retro, casual. They weren't the kind of bag you could keep everything in little compartments - more the big squashy kind that even your passport and water bottle fit into, but you had to dig for it :) They weren't excessively boho - well maybe a little.

But I found some new vintage nylon fabric in a foray into the secondhand universe and I loved it so much ! It felt like it needed a dress somehow....it would be wasted as a slip or nightgown. I had this thicker, sort of almost luxurious hand. That's fabric-speak for it's texture or weight. So on a whim, I just made this lightly fitted, kind of vintage 1930s style dress that seemed to just come to life as it was designed. It fit the S/XS dress form (Esperanza if you're curious) I was using perfectly and made me smile.

It was fresh.....so I called it Creme Fraiche - fresh cream in French.
I grabbed my dress form and took off down into the woods on our then mountaintop home and took pics in the morning when the light was brightest. It seemed to make the dress luminous.

 Someone wonderful found it and loved it...so I tried another !

And thus one of a kind dresses were born...at least mine were.  I was so happy that I began experimenting with more wedding dresses. My next one was a dreadlocks style wedding dress - and the tattered angle was integrated :)

 I've loved every second of making all the one of a kind gowns I've made. Even the one of a kind gown that I made to replace the first one of a kind gown for one bride was one of a kind. It's just hard to duplicate a gown for me somehow. I cook that way too. My family is always amazed and sad when I make a wonderful chocolate chip recipe. I have a hard time doing it the same way twice !!