Rachel Lamb Bridal Design

On the practical side, this week has been spent: pattern cutting, altering toiles, layering and sewing lace dress pieces and removing the beads from the seam allowances, snapping needles on the beads in the seam allowances that escaped removal, admiring the motifs. All while listening to (and occasionally getting slightly irritated by) Stephen Fry , but I think he'd understand.

I've wanted to show you this dress for ages, because I really enjoyed making it! It felt like a real  creative collaboration between myself and the bride Sarah's family - especially her mum, who deserves a medal for going over and above the call of duty in the crochet department! I only have pictures of the later stages of the dress manufacture and the wedding, but the dress idea started from Sarah's mother's wedding dress which was from the 1970's and very of its time; it had quite a vintage hippy vibe to it, very free-flowing and made of cotton with embroidered areas, sleeves and flowery trim. I wish I had a picture to show you. Anyway, Sarah wanted to emulate the feel of that dress but with a modern feel which was more 'her'.  This picture (above) of Sarah in an early fitting, shows her wearing the calico toile, which is perhaps closest in feel and look to her mother's dress, but without the embellishment. (That's my hand poking...

Here's one of my recent brides getting married this summer in California. Here she is in her final fitting. The dress was made from layers of silk organza over silk dupion, with button fastening and little bow details at the back. The simplicity of the design speaks for itself I think, - an easy to wear knee (or just below) length dress with fabulous contrasting shoes. I enjoy it when the shoes make a contrast to the dress. Perhaps I'll collate some other images of funky shoe contrast for future viewing...

Remember this wedding from my last post? I wanted to show you some of the actual day and the dress being worn. As there were so many pictures, I thought I'd divide them up into separate posts. Off to the woods... Love these pictures of the bride Tash, having a waft :) She looks great in that late summer sun with the seedheads behind her and the flowers in her hair. A really laid-back feel for a chilled-out wedding. I'll show you a few more at a later date.

The other day I received some photos from one of my recent brides, and they made me smile in a big way. They were just so her . After I'd looked through them I remembered that I'd taken pictures of her wedding dress throughout the process and that I'd taken quite a few. So as there are many images relating to this wedding and I would like to show most of them, I thought I'd break it up into a few posts. The shot above is of Tash, the bride and her new husband. I thought I'd put this one in first as, even though you can't see any detail, it has such a faded, atmospheric, summery charm to it. I love that they are in a wheat field :) I thought it pleasant to show you a romantic and wedding-y picture before going back to the nitty-gritty reality shots about the process of making a bespoke bridal gown. Ah, the glamour of calico, pen and pins. This is the under-layer toile of the dress - the basic shape made in cali...

Outside I can see so many lovely shades of green, more faded yellowy-green as befits early Autumn than the fresher blue-greens of spring, soon to be gone for a season or turned to brown by a plough. Brown is good too of course, it is the colour of chocolate after all, but green is such a relaxing and invigorating colour I think. Last week I had an inspiring appointment with a potential client. Afterwards I was left with the impression that this was someone who was definitely doing 'her thing' for her wedding day. Mentioning no names, she will be wearing green, possibly carrying a bouquet that includes mint. That really caught my imagination and I was left with an impression of a zingy green theme, of invigorating green. I've made several green dresses for weddings in the past, and I'm often unhelpfully reminded that green for weddings is often thought to be unlucky. Just so you know - I don't think this. Anyway, it prompted me to do some (...

Here's Karen from a few years back, wearing a silk Duchesse Satin gown with a random pleated effect across the body and a contrasting velvet shawl. Karen is very petite, so the skirt width was especially important and was made to fit her proportionally with a bespoke made underskirt. I particularly like the wide square neck of this dress.

I don't know why I didn't think of this beforehand, but hey, I have now, and that's the main thing. One of my 'issues' with blogging about my work is that it is mainly private, so although I'm often working on stuff a year before the event, it would be unthinkable to show it. Once the event is over it can take a while for pictures to come through, so often I'm very busy, but my hands are tied with visuals. Until now. I've made 100s of dresses and outfits over the years, so why not show them? Somehow, to me, the concept of blogging has always felt very much 'in the moment' rather than the past, but why I should think this way, I don't know, and I'm not now. This is the wedding of Sabine. It was some years back now, but her picture has graced many of my adverts and publicity over the years (and no doubt will continue to do so), because I think she looks stunning in these pictures and the design kind of sums up my work 'look'. ...

Here is one of my stunning spring brides to show you. Alice came to see me last year, and more or less knew exactly what she wanted - wow - easy! The first 3 images are her dress on the stand when it was almost finished. As you can see it was a full length, all-over lace dress, fitted... ...with shoulder straps and a fishtail shape. Alice provided the brooch (which was actually a buckle that we adapted), and the shrug was something that was added towards the end, when thoughts of chilly weather were discussed.   Here she is with her father, pre-wedding. ...and there she goes - wedded with her chap!