For Fall 2022, Monique Lhuillier took her brides to the colorful streets of Cartagena. With its historic colonial architecture and lively music and art scene, the city invites you to go well beyond the surface—much like Lhuillier’s body of work. This season, Lhuillier is celebrating 25 years in fashion with a new collection and a beautiful coffee table book that brings you inside her long and arduous design process.

For example, did you know that it takes some 15 people and 1,000 hours to make just one of her gowns? Or that her fabrics are sourced from around the world—places like Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland? The lace comes predominantly from France, while crystal work and embroideries are crafted in India. And her now-signature prints are developed in-house, then produced in a mill in Italy.

It’s all in a day’s work for Lhuillier, who in the lead-up to the release, brought her 1.7 million Instagram followers into her atelier in Los Angele as she put the finishing touches on the collection. One clip showed her as she appliquéd a gown with an exposed corset and blouson sleeves; another saw her hand-making a two-tier veil, which topped off a floral-embroidered lace dress with a detachable cummerbund.

“Late nights in the atelier!” she captioned one video. Indeed, it takes a lot of hard work to make dresses that look so seemingly effortless. With light and frothy silhouettes that will float down the aisle, and lush botanical prints that would feel right at home at a destination wedding in a location as similarly far-flung as Cartagena, her latest outing was imbued with zest and fun—which for Lhuillier, is well-deserved.