Since being in London, I have done lots of fun things, but mostly, I have been walking around the city and trying to get myself oriented with the layout of the city. One activity that I should mention, though, is my visit to Buckingham Palace to see The Duchess of Cambridge's wedding dress, AKA Kate Middleton, AKA my idol.
Actual photos are not permitted, but you can see the amount of reverence this dress is treated with. The dress is on display in the palace ballroom and it is the only thing in that room aside from a small case visible on the lower right corner of the photo. The case contains a replica of Kate's bouquet, the earrings she wore (amazing) and her shoes, also designed my the House of McQueen.
In the ballroom, they air a video of Sarah Burton explaining the process for making the dress.
This is the transcript of that:
This is the flat pattern of how the dress was constructed, so as you see the cutting itself was quite a complex thing. Each of these panels and arches of the dress was mapped out in paper first; then we cut each individual piece of the lace out and placed it onto these panels. This is made up of six different types of lace- you have the shamrock, the thistle, the rose and the daffodil- and we laid them onto the dress so we could see exactly what the embroidery would look like before we embroidered the dress. And then we took the panel to Hampton Court where they appliqued onto the tulle all of these elements.
The shoes, like the dress, were bespoke for the Duchess. The chosen shape was very elegant and reflected the style of the dress. Again, we cut all the individual aspects of the flowers from the lace and appliqued them onto the shoes- they were first pinned in place and then the Royal School of Needlework hand appliqued the elements onto the shoe.
The dress itself is made from satin gazar and what's great is the lightness of it- it didn't feel overpowering or heavy in anyway. To get the correct colour of the dress we had an ivory satin gazar that we hand mounted on a white satin gazar so the overall effect wasn't too cream and it was a very light ivory colour.
Inside the dress we had a bustle, which is constructed out of circles of organza to give this oyster effect, again, this references an old Victorian technique and gives it a bustle effect at the back of the dress.
To create the lace, we took six different laces and we found different motifs on each, so [in] this lace here, we have the shamrock- these were all cut out by hand and reapplied at the bottom of the dress. So you have the shamrock motif all the way round the bottom of the dress. As you can see, the tulle was the base where the lace was appliqued and then we cut away all the tulle so you had plain areas of satin organza, and then this was hand appliqued onto the satin organza. Again, on the bodice we took all of the different laces and applied them onto the tulle on the bodice so we created our lace- it's a complete mirrored effect and if you look at it every single element joined and matched on the bodice and on the dress itself and it was all created by hand.
I think we wanted to look to the past but also to the future as well. There were lots of references to Victorian corsetry and to the padded hip and tiny waist. And to the arts and crafts movement with all the handwork on the lace of the dress and also the bustle inside to create the shape of the back of the dress so it has an essence of the Victorian. Yet it was a very modern way that we cut the dress, it's a very light fabric and also the pleats and the folds creating a modern feeling rather than a historical piece.
I think what we wanted to achieve was something that was a piece itself- incredibly beautiful, intricately worked, but a lot of it is in the subtlety of the detail -- the handcraft of the lace, and the cut and shapes of the folds involved in the construction of the dress. But we had to remember that is was Westminster Abbey so it still had to have a presence, it was this idea of having a dress with a presence and a historical importance and yet being modest at the same time.
The Duchess' choice of veil was a very modern choice as well. She wanted to use a very soft silk tulle which gave a very romantic effect to the whole dress. But also she didn't want to detract from the bottom of the dress. I think a lot of people would have had a very long veil which would cover the lace completely, but she really wanted to enhance the workmanship of the bottom of the dress and the artisan nature of it and not detract from it. So she went for this very beautiful silk tulle veil which echoed the arches of the back of the dress but didn't detract from them. (Because it was engineered to fall just in between the two lace motifs- so again you had this mirroring effect of all the lace all the way down the back of the dress).
We wanted there to be a juxtaposition of all the beautiful handcraft and the lace work and the artisan technique and the shape of the dress itself. For this reason itself, we chose a quite modern fabric, this very clean satin gazar and we mounted it onto satin organza. There are these continuous panels of fabric and they're also cut on the fold so there are no seams on these lines, which are very difficult to construct. So underneath each of these panels, we have the embroidery as well, which again is a subtlety that the Duchess wanted to ensure that everything was completely thought out and created in a very artisan way.
And we also had to think about the environment that it was being worn in. The Duchess was very conscious that when she walked in, she didn't want the dress to collapse. In a way, it was a real feat of engineering as we wanted the dress to remain light and not have too many underskirts or be too constructed underneath, and also to maintain this very symmetrical shape. To do this, we weighted with canvassing the whole bottom of the dress, but in particular, we weighted this middle part with a double layer of canvassing so that when we lifted the dress it would fall back in exactly the same position and also when she walked down the aisle it wouldn't crumple in on itself but always held the same shape.
