Philip Treacy Times Five!

So much talk about the royal wedding! I was never really in the hoop about it. I had to make a posting on the wedding with my top five favorite hats!!!

Even though the live coverage here in Italy, which is an all day event, went on a little long. I was certainly happy to see all the beautiful hats!!

Philip Traecy on the groom's cousins- Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice:

Then Victoria Beckham- much of the commentary in the news wondered how the hat was angled in such a manner, and stayed on her head:

Tara Parker-Tomkinson, the socialite:

Zara Phillips- I love this one!!

As a milliner, I enjoyed watching the snippets of the all day live coverage of the Royal Wedding.

Threads of Life

As I walked into the fabric store with my soon to me mother-in-law I was not sure what I would find. I had my photo research of what I would like my dress to be, but being the only fabric store for miles, in this little Italian town, I really did not know.

I immediately walked toward the silk section, which anything close to bridal was only shantung. I was fortunate to find a nice silver tone, which was close to my color selection from my research. So I purchased it.

When I it was ready to be worn for my big day, which was less than a month later, I still remember the first words my mother-in-law said to me. "Wow, the fabric looks so much different then it did in the store!"

The completion of my dress had given it so much life! It was a wonderful sight, I could not have asked for any other dress for that marvelous day!

The lifeless threads that ran through the lifeless yardage of silk shantung, now were given an unbeliveable life.

The Wedding Dress

The most exciting project I have ever work on was my wedding dress. I had less than a month to have it completely finished. The thought of buying a dress did not even enter my mind. After about fifteen days I had a wonderful, one of a kind dress. (Completely one of a kind with no pattern in existence.)

I started off with a couple of pictures I found in Sposa. Then I returned to the only decent fabric store in my area. (Which coming from Los Angeles, it was difficult to find a place with a selection.) For what I was looking for, I found no options. My only choice was a silver silk shantung.

So that was settled, now I had to find steel boning for my corset. The only place I could find steel boning was in the UK. I did not have enough time to wait, and I did not want to risk something happening to it on the way to Italy. I searched high and low in my area, all I found was Rigilene. At this point I had not choice but to use two layers of Rigilene. (Which in the end I was not satisfied with it, I wish I would have had enough time to wait for the steel boning.)

Using my dressform I draped a muslin for my pattern and constructed my corset. Then using a base fabric I draped the front base of the dress and stitched it together. I then placed it on the form, at this point with the corset attached to it, then draped the actual fabric. I had never constructed and item in this manner. But being the time constraint and the fact that the dress would never need to be reproduced, this was the ideal process.

For the top piece, which includes the short tail and the center back closure, I draped it using the base fabric. I then removed it and flat-lined it to the actual fabric. So in this step I flat patterned the top outer piece. (That is using the draped base as my patten, and also the interior flat-lined layer.)

I felt structure was still necessary so I constructed a softly full, petticoat out of tulle. After minimal lining ( I made sure my interiors were finished nicely to eleminate using an all interior lining ), and a zipper my wedding dress was ready!

So now being that the wedding was in Italy and that it was in October, I had to have some sort of cover or shawl. I had a piece of ivory silk organza in mind. But when I started placing it on the dress form with the dress, it was a different look. That is the dress looked elegant and the silk organza look too, I guess old. (It was actually a veil which had been used, it looked like many, many, years ago.)

Now one more day was left before my deadline. I did have a little more then a yard left from the lining of the dress. I draped a base shaw type thing, then just starting ramdomly rushing the fabric onto it. I stitched it all down, and finished it entirely. So now I needed some type of center front closure.
The following morning I walking into a small business in town. I saw a pair of earrings which would go perfectly with the entire outfit. Once I arrived home I made a base out of a few pieces of fabric machine quilted together. I covered it with a scrap of the dress fabric. After having taken apart the earrings I placed them on the base, and stitch them. I then stitched it entirely to the shrug, shawl creation. I stitched three snaps, and I had the perfect closure!

After two fittings , less than two weeks I had an amazing wedding dress which included so much satisfaction, being that it had been constructed entirely by my hands.