Handmade Elements by Female Artists around the World

Nothing more DELIGHTFUL than discovering incredible artists making art with their hands and hearts that I can add to your special gown.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Handknit flowers designed and created by an amazing woman, Jen, in Oklahoma City whose flower sales support her weekend service of creating care packages for homeless individuals and shut in senior citizens. 

Beautiful inspiring hand embroidered animals designed AND created by Ukranian artist Julia Yevzhenko in Kiev, which supports her family.

Handpainted lace flowers from a wonderful woman Cheryl in Vermont, who started painting lace flowers to add dimension to her quilting. She found the way the color moved along the thread lines fascinating, it feels like nature. 

little pieces of history

Vintage Deadstock Trim

I have discovered some collections of beautiful, never used, little pieces of beautifully made art that was produced in the 50s-90s and never sold. These are well made from a totally different era - and sitting somewhere for decades waiting to come to life! These factories and often production processes are no longer, so the pieces can often times never be made again. Therefore if I include some of these materials and pieces on a gown, it limits how many I can make of that gown design.

Landfill Diverted Fabric Remnants

Most production requires brand new pieces or full size fabric, so they can use fabric and details each time for the design to be identically repeated. But there are so many beautiful partial pieces of gorgeous trim and parts of fabric that would go to waste, which can add something special to a dress and make it one of a kind while diverting these beauties from landfills.

it's so fun to find the prettiest

Deadstock Materials

When a brand creates a line it usually includes fabric production, but often they must order more than they need as a buffer for production issues.  If all of this buffer yardage is not needed then there is very small quantities of excess fabric in these very specific colors and designs which often then take up space in a factory, or end up in a landfill.  It's not enough yardage for another brand to do production with, but luckily it's enough for me to make a few gowns in and voila! Here are the limited run colors then this comes in.  This means though that I cannot make this design in exactly this fabric ever again.

from a BIPOC female run textile company

Innovative Award Winning Textiles from Post-Consumer Renewed Plastic Bottles

Silk free silky satin, organza, and chiffon made of 100% post-consumer recycled fibers: created by an award winning Asian female founded textile house in Australia and Asia, with factories that are certified to OEKO-TEX (no harmful chemicals in the dye), recycled fibers certified GRS, with fabric machines run by skilled engineers paid much higher than traditional textile production wages. Each gown recycles around 20+ plastic bottles in a mechanical process. Founder Edwina pictured here!

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