We DONT do replicas

Very often I receive emails from people who enquire about custom make gowns for their weddings or important events. But what frustrates me is they attach images of dresses either ripped from somewhere or dresses worn by celebrities during special events and ask if I can product an exact replica.

If they want an exact replica, they can either buy the real thing or ask another tailor shop to do it. I think they will be quite happy. But to ask a designer to copy another dress exactly is quite an insult in my opinion. I will rather they tell me they like certain design details and I can incorporate them in my design for them.
When I do custom make, I will ask if they have any specific design details they like for instance plunging neckline, chinese collar, back detail. And we must also consider whether the design they like will in fact look good on them as we are blessed with certain features and cursed with some short comings.

For instance a petite girl will never look good in a floor sweeping voluminous gown as it will "swallow' her and make her look fat. So what looks good on an actress may not exactly look good on any one else. To design a long gown for a petite lady, it has to be figure skimming and light. So whenever I custom make a gown for someone, I will sit down with the customer to understand what she likes and needs to look good and not do some blatant replicas. The time and effort spent to generate sketches from a thorough thought process which focuses on making the customer stand out is definitely more than just doing replicas. But that is the true value and worth of a designer(who is also a consultant), if not he/she is just a dressmaker.