Design & Innovation

Wedding gown design

Simplicity is always beautiful

By Joyce Lam

For many women, wearing a wedding gown may be a central goal in life. A wedding gown can match perfectly with the blissful smiles of a bride, the delightful atmosphere of the wedding ceremonies, and of course the happiest bridegroom. These magical reactions may be the most significant difference between wedding gowns and ordinary daily clothing.

Sarah Lau, a wedding gown designer of Cocoon Bridal Company, shows the differences are much more than that.

“After drawing a rough sketch of the dress, we will do draping on a dummy,” Ms. Lau said.

Draping is different from the two-dimensional pattern construction used in producing the daily garments. Instead, it is a three-dimensional pattern-making process during which the designers directly sew pieces of fabrics on the dummy.

“The dress with good draping can give the wearer a charming body shape, so the process of draping is very important,” said Au Sau Chuen, assistant professor of the Institute of Textiles and Clothing at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Every wedding gown is unique like the bride. However, Ms. Lau thought that wedding gowns in the mainstream boutiques could not really fit the brides.

She said, “Their wedding gowns are not designed and manufactured by themselves. They are bought from other places around the world.”

Because these gowns are not tailor-made for the local brides, they may not fit the figures of the brides. Ms. Lau thought that although these gowns are beautiful, any trim would definitely destroy the original design. Moreover, she is bored with the stereotyped wedding gown design.

“Putting all the lace, embroidery and accessories on the dresses does not mean the best,” she explained.

She gave an example of how to make a wedding gown, “If the back of the gown is eye-catching, the front should be as simple as possible. This will make the gowns less cumbersome and complicated. This is the real beauty.”

Ms. Lau said the wedding gowns she designs are simple. She also tries to mix and match various elements to make the wedding gowns different and fashionable.

“For example, we have used linen and gauze other than satin and silk, which are commonly used in making wedding gowns.”

She believes that the trend of today's wedding gowns is simple and fashionable. Dr. Au also shared a similar view.

“Today's wedding gowns are more or less the same as the evening gowns,” said Dr. Au. “They are simple, modern and less formal.”

Since a wedding gown is something personal and special for the bride, customers' need is always the most important thing the designers need to consider when they are making the dresses.

Ms Lau said she listens what the customer wants, but partially. ‘Partially' does not mean they just pretend to obey the customers' words.

“The wedding gowns on the models are always perfect. Everyone wants to look like a model. However, the request of the bride may not flawlessly fit her figure,” she explained.

Therefore, they try to give comments on their customers' ideas. Undoubtedly their advice should be something constructive and most of the customers will accept it.

Customers' trust in Ms. Lau is not built up years by years.

She said when she changed from an ordinary fashion designer to a wedding gown designer, she knew nothing about designing a wedding gown.

She said, “I had to explore all the things myself. The professors in the design school do not teach you how to design a piece of garment, in particular the wedding gowns and the evening gowns.”

“The design course is general,” said Liew Kim Leong, principal lecturer of Institute of Textile and Clothing. “It does not focus so specifically on wedding gowns and evening gowns. Unless there is a project about this kind of clothing, we seldom mention that in our lectures.”

Mr. Liew said making a wedding gown is difficult and it needs the finest materials.

“The students rarely choose wedding gowns and evening gowns as the topic of their final project. It is too difficult for them to finish it,” he said.

According to Dr. Au, there is approximately only one student per year who finally becomes a wedding gown designer after graduation.

Without specific training Ms. Lau said fashion magazines are always the teachers.

“I do not only read the magazines about wedding gowns and evening gowns, but also others like the Pret-a-porter (ready to wear),” said she.

A wedding gown requires complicated handiwork. It takes about three months from designing to finishing a gown. However, Ms. Lau thought the satisfaction she obtains from being a wedding gown designer is much greater than being an ordinary fashion designer.

“The designers for daily garments need to follow the world trend in order to survive. They ought to be fast in response and follow the trend like a swarm of bees,” Ms. Lau said.

“For wedding gowns, designers are relatively independent from the world trend. So we can work with more of our own ideas.

“We also look at what the foreign wedding gowns designers do, but we do not need to stick to them immediately. For example, if a certain colour is the trend for wedding gowns, we will not choose exactly that colour in all of our work.”

Ms. Lau said there are still a lot of things for her to learn for her career. But one thing to keep her in the competition and exploration is her interest in designing wedding dresses, which also is a tip and an encouragement to newcomers in the career.