Frilled Chiffon Floral Details

Victoria’s dress was a really exciting one for me to make this year!

I think that the crisp white silk satin chiffon fools the eye into thinking that it’s a clean cut and modern dress, but (I think) it has some really pretty textural floral detail.
The neckline of the dress was a little undecided for quote a while, but eventually we settled on a soft cowl neck, and slightly blouson shape at the waist, with  pleats at the back waist going into a low back.

I remember Victoria’s first email to me very well; she had long ago collected and stashed an image of a dress that she loved, torn from a magazine ad, not really with much intent. But when marriage was proposed, the magazine cutting came back into her mind. Really oddly, the image seemed very familiar to me, I must have loved it when I saw it too - it was very Valentino. The main detail which Victoria wanted to take from the dress, which was otherwise quite incomprehensible from the now tatty image, was that it would have a beautiful silk flower at the back waist. Just up my street, and i knew how I’d create it too, with long bias cut lengths of french silk chiffon and satin silk chiffon, twisted and pleated, raw edged and fold edged.

We wanted to expand out from the flower, but didn’t want to be too over the top, so we trailed some of the soft bias strips of silk to follow the edge of the back neckline, and swirling softly over the shoulders, each one having a slightly different composition and size of smaller silk roses.
The back skirt also had subtle bias frills draped softly down the seams, flowing towards the end of the train, but fading out before reaching the hem.

I really hope you like this dress as much as I do!

The wedding photographs are by the brilliant Wedding Photographer Jamie Bott, find his website here www.jamiebottweddingphotography.com