Vegan and Eco wedding dresses

It entirely depends on your idea of what ‘eco‘ is, as there are so many conversations. But in short, there’s an option for everybody without too much compromise in design!

Kirstie is vegan, and so didn't want to use any animal product at all in her wedding dress. To create the ballgown style wedding dress skirt, by chance, man-made fibres gave the best volume for this style.

Of course there are man-made fabrics that we are all familiar with, which I almost hesitate to mention (but there are some lovely ones available, trust me) - Polyester in particular.
My supplier James Hare has a range of polyester fabrics which are brilliant - the qualities of their duchess Satin and Crepe Satin are almost undetectable compared to their silk counterparts.
I tend to steer away from synthetic chiffon and organza as they can be a little bit shiny and plasticy.

There are also a number of UK grown silks, which is know as peace silk. Silk worms are natural producers of silk fibres, but rather than extracting the fibres, as is the usual practice, peach silk gathers naturally produced fibres and is spun into silks threads to be woven into fabric. The quality of these silks is usually a little bit lighter, and a little more sheer, and maybe a little bit rougher - but not too much. Colour choices are more limited, but they can be dyed if you’re after a specific colour.

Marian's dress was made using peace silk, from Majestic textiles, a UK organic silk supplier, and pretty laces in polyester and cotton from Platinum bridal fabrics.

I’ve recently got into eco-dying - using only plant materials to dye fabrics. The results are beautiful, but also unpredictable, and will fade over long periods of time - I've got more experiments to do!!

A wedding dress coloured using eco-dyes by renowned textile artist India Flint.

Feathers are becoming a popular material, especially for jacket and wraps (as are vintage furs- there is the option to use a man-made faux fur of course!) There's not really a replica feather option though - so this is where you have to get creative. I've used shredded fabrics, chiffon in particular to create a fluffy/floaty kind of texture.

Kirstie wanted a dancing dress for the evening, and had originally wanted some kind of feather-like texture that swished and rippled as she danced the night away. I cam up with the idea to shred chiffon, apply large navette shaped paillettes, and really luckily found some feather lace trim - that is - lace in the shape of feathers!