Sorry for the long wait as I have been busy preparing for my ROM Solemnisation Ceremony, held at the High Society Cafe, MBS in November. Here's a peek at the making of my ROM gown, shoes and hair piece which took about a month with the endless sewing!
The beginning of my beautiful ROM gown done to my exact measurements. Watch how it gets transformed after sewing stitch by stitch over 20 days with our exquisite French lace applique and Swarovskis.
The dress is laid on the lace fabric to find the most ideal pattern layout
Sewing on lace applique requires a keen eye for aesthetics and details besides skilled hands to sew on the lace stitch by stitch. The designer has to visualise how different parts of the lace has to be arranged on the gown to give the most stunning effect.
The bottom of the lace is pin onto the bustier portion of the gown.
Instead of cutting the lace out directly which will result in fraying. The tailor unpicks the thread that holds the flowers, meticulously and patiently.
After unpicking, the loose ends are then folded in part by part and Hand sewn carefully to ensure the flowers look fluffy and natural. Sewing with a sewing machine will be much faster but will spoil the natural beauty of the flowers. Even a small part of the gown is done in such a meticulous way which is the signature of luxury fashion-details do matter even when unseen.
The lace applique is cut out one by one and arranged onto the gowns with pins first. This part requires much thought by the designer because the precise position of the lace applique matters. Sometimes few hours can be spent just thinking if the lace applique need to be shifted more to the left, right, up or down which affects the entire visual impact of the gown.
At the back of the gown is a specially ordered diamond zip from Japan.
The gown has a translucent lace portion at the bottom which is a special design feature. As I am very petite, I am not suited for a long gown. But the translucent lace at the bottom means it will not weigh me down and adds some sexiness without being tarty.
Every step of making a gown requires much patience, difficulty and very skilled hands. The seamstress has to put her hand inside the gown during the entire sewing process to prevent sewing the lace onto the inner lining.
The lace is sewn using an "invisble stitching" technique. When you turn the gown inside out, you can hardly see any stitches as they are like ultra fine tiny dots which is lesser than 0.5mm! These skilled seamstresses have at least being sewing for 30 years and are a dying crowd.
Sewing a diamante trimming onto the edge of the gown. The sewing went on for days and days to weeks.
Behind this tool is a steady skilled hands repeating this process tirelessly of putting on Swarovskis on the flowers one by one until the whole gown is full of hundreds of Swarovskis. The tool melts the glue behind the crystal to ensure adhesion of the crystal to the gown. To do this, the timing and angle of holding the tool requires much precision.
After this, we require sewing on bigger crystals to ensure there is a "layered" effect of different size crystals on the gown.
In luxury fashion, everything is done as detailed and meticulous as possible. Even inside the seams, where no one thinks they bother to see.
The shoes are also done to match the gown. Parts of the lace applique is cut from the same lace and sewn on the shoes to create a complete look. This is signature to Fuchsia Lane- sewing on lace applique even on shoes which is much much more stiffer and harder than fabric!
Precious pair of shoes with complementary elements from the gown.
This is the first time we are doing everything from the gown, matching shoes to the head piece. Was challenging at first as we have never really designed head piece. Took us 3 days to do, redo and unpick before I am happy with it.
Sometimes people can never imagine how much work goes into creating something so simple yet elegant and stunning. The thought process, the arrangement, the trials, re-doing and unpicking until you get it right, the wasted samples and the final tedious sewing. But what is simple and elegant is truly the result of an unseen team of efforts and thoughts
A peek of the final gown. Shy...
By the way, many of the guests love the gown-and the super expensive embroidered fabric (most expensive fabric I have bought actually) was courtesy of hubby and imported from Europe!
If you are tired of having something which everyone has and want something that is unique and tailor made with pride. Then you will like it here at Fuchsia Lane.
We are open every Tues to Fridays 12-7.30pm, Sat 1-7pm. Sun is by appointments only. Closed on Monday. Our atelier is at 118A Tanjong Pagar Road.
