Wednesday 17 February 2010

Ooops, Sorry.



I got my knuckles rapped today. Advertising for personal gain is not permitted in the forums.
Well, it wasn't really for personal gain, quite the opposite actually.
Many ladies ask my advice about petticoats, Jupon to be exact. Now, this isn't something I deal with, I'm a dressmaker, I make petticoats and build most of them into my gowns very succesfully, I don't buy them in.

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But, as a one off, a few ladies asked if I could get them a Jupon so I ordered them in. Now, the reason I say "not for personal gain" is because it really isn't. I get the petticoats at trade cost, the postage and the cost of the postage out. I make very little if not anything on this action, but what I do is use my telephone to make the call, bag them all up when they arrive and re package and then walk to the post office to post them out.
The reason I do this is because the wedding business is expensive. Many feel the moment you mention the word wedding, the price goes up.
This one time offer was to do something nice and not for personal gain. Apologies to the ladies in the forum who took offence.

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Being in the dressmaking industry it is very interesting to see how other seamstress work. What techniques they use so, when a fellow dressmaker asked how I construct my gowns and I quote. "Ps from a design point of view I am assuming that you mean you build them into short tea length dresses?? as I find if i was to do it with a full length dress it makes it very heavy and if I do them separate it helps distribute the weight of the dress?" I find it interesting.
So, in true form I searched the most famous wedding dress designers The Emmanuel's to discover if Princess Diana's wedding dress had a seperate petticoat or was it built in?


I discovered that the train alone, a whopping 25 feet, was attached at the waistline. Surely this would have been a massive drag on the waistline? So, I emailed Elizabeth Emanuel and asked the question.
Within moments I received my reply.
Hello Linda,

The petticoat for the Royal Wedding gown was seperate to the main dress. We rarely build a full petticoat into a dress.

Hope this helps!

Elizabeth Emanuel

Art of BeingGarden Studio51 Maida ValeLondon W9 1SD
Tel: 0207 289 4545
Fax: 0207 289 7584
The word rarely does not indicate never, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Fabric needs to be taken into account as does the quantities.
But, I've learned something today and this is the beauty of dressmaking.
Thank you, Elizabeth for taking the time to respond and thank you Bex for the question!






2 comments:

  1. I just have to say that the phrase, The Royal Wedding Gown simply speaks for itself!

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  2. Don't apologise to them, some people just over react, it's their problem not yours!

    Wow, that's sooooo cool that Elizabeth Emanuel replied to you! :-)

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