The Vintage X L.O.M Wedding Dress

When my friend Alex asked me to work on her wedding dress for her, I was super excited. Not only did I know the dress was going to be a really fun project, but I also knew the wedding was going to be EPIC.

Alex and Sol (Solex) are the creators of the Provibers, if you have spent any time on the UK festival circuit you may have come across this colourful bunch of vibe creators! Having spent many a weekend camped next to these two absolute babes in fields and mountaintops, it was an honour to attend their fabulous wedding, and an absolute joy to be able to help Alex create something that was uniquely her.

Most of you won’t know this, but 10 years ago I started my first label, Oh My Honey, specialising in 1950’s style wedding dresses (which is still quietly going now, in the background behind L.O.M!)

I created collections of bridal wear and worked on bespoke orders for brides looking for something different, usually with a retro twist. I actually have more experience in the bridal fashion world than the festival one believe it or not!

A year before the wedding Alex showed me her Mum’s wedding dress and we start talking about ways to add to what was an already beautiful dress. Alex had bought a jacket from a sample sale of L.O.M that had 3D flowers and embroidery and beadwork that she loved, and that was our starting point.

Here is a photo of her beautiful Mum wearing the original dress.

The dress was already such a good fit on Alex, I didn’t need to make many alterations to the size or length, but we decided to open the back up to show a bit more skin, and this would be filled with invisible nude mesh to hold the shape, and framed with floral detail.

After the base was complete it was time to get to work on the embellishment. Alex wanted me to L.O.M-up her dress, she put a lot of trust in me and pretty much let me do what I wanted! Being allowed creative freedom on a paid project, and having someone who trusts you completely to do your thing, is a magical and rare treat as an artist, and I think it is sometimes when your best work can come out!

I started with the bodice, laying out the embroidered patches and pinning them into place, playing around with layout and positioning until I settled on a design I liked. This was then all meticulously hand stitched invisibly into place, and then beads and sequins were added freehand after.

At the next fitting we talked about how much detail we wanted to add to the bottom of the dress, and settled on a lower amount at the front and a wider section at the back with scattered flowers and vines creeping up into the rest of the dress.

I loosely cut out the embroidery and pinned it all into place where I would then stitch it down.

This bigger detail around the hem was stitched into place with the industrial sewing machine with automatic thread cutter, to hand sew these on would have literally taken a year! But as you can imagine, this method was still very time consuming if you think about how many flower details and leaves and petals there are around the whole bottom of the dress.

Once the detail was stitched into place, I began to dot hand cut embroidered flowers around it, creating a fade effect. Then I hand trimmed away the excess tulle that was the original base of the embroidery.

Finally I scattered sequinned flowers all over the hem and up into the dress, adding a magical sparkle all over that would catch the light beautifully as she walked down the aisle. I didn’t count the exact amount of hours on the dress, but I think it was between 80 and 100, and I loved every minute of it!

Sol’s incredible outfit was made by Nicolas Immaculate, not only one of the finest costumiers, but also the owner of the incredible farm that the wedding was held at.

Twinks Burnett made her a floral headpiece to match, and I sent her some of the sequin embellishments that I had used on the dress to work into the headdress.

She looked SO beautiful as she arrived that half the congregation were in tears before she even made it half way down the aisle! That was maybe in part to the fabulous dress, but mostly because Alex is one of the most radiantly beautiful people on the planet, inside and out, and she was walking towards another equally fantastic human where they would make their vows and we were all eternally happy for them! 

Thats the dress details, but if you want to hear more about this amazing wedding, just out of fun and curiosity, part 2 coming next week!… oh, did I mention that I made them custom L.O.M wedding evening party wear too?? …

The whole wedding has been featured on Rock and Roll bride too, (after Kat saw the live updates of the wedding on my Instagram stories!) So you can also check it out there!

Good photos: Danny North

(Bad Photos: My iPhone!)