Mustard Yellow, Floral, 1930's Style Wedding Dress

Gosh, now here is a dress commission to get excited about!
While Shazeen listed all of my favourite things on her wedding dress wish list, I beamed with delight; vintage styling, a cape, flora, an unusual colour . . .

The silhouette was loosely based on a 1930’s style, modernised to suit Shazeen’s figure, fitted on the body, and flared, with godet inserts in the skirt, and with the smallest possible train.
Shazeen thought a cape would be cool, but then as the idea developed and we confirmed what we wanted the cape to look like - Fitted over the shoulder, but making a pretty scoop over the sleeve meant that to add any kind of fastening would break the clean effect of the shaping, so the cape was integrated into the dress. The back of the cape dips in an arch, and with godet inserts for movement, any which also mimics the bottom of the skirt.

We shopped for the fabric together, initially looking for a vibrant, sunflower yellow - almost neon, but in reality this shade didn’t suit Shazeen’s skin tone being such a block of colour. Instead, we chose a mustard yellow silk crepe.

Our floral embroidery designs were largely based on the intended spring flowers by Shazeen’s florist - Hannah at Saint Floral, and the colour pallettes and inspirations collected on Pinterest; wild roses and buds, scabious, daisies, ferns and sheep’s parsley. Colours contrasted and complimented the mustard yellow of the silk, with peach, brown and burnt orange, pale to raspberry pink, and shades of lilac. Since we had a more muted tone for the dress overall, I took a chance to add some more striking bright and bold colours in the embroidery and applique with accents of chartreuse, cerise, lilac blue and metallic gold.
To create a scabious-type flower I used silk ribbons in french knots, and silk threaded french knots to create the sheep’s parsley. The hem was scattered with a matching palette of hammered fabric primroses.

The floral motifs were made as appliques and applied to the dress after construction so that they could be positioned exactly to enhance Shazeen’s figure.

This is a dress which I enjoyed making, as much as I now enjoy marveling at. I hope you like it too!