Our need to interact and unify as a collective community is at its greatest during these scary, unpredictable times. Supporting small businesses and dedicated artisanal workers is top of mind and hopefully will be a part of the future landscape. Consequently, we’re placing a spotlight (from our quarantined quarters!) on some truly incredible artists based in the U.K. who utilize the art of embroidery to dramatic, stunning, and deeply personal effect, so that when the time comes for the lockdown to lift, we can champion these talented designers.
Hermione De Paula
Storytelling and imagery are at the heart of Hermione De Paula’s inimitable bridal creations; never has embroidery been utilised in such a moving way. Each design is a work of art fit to be passed down through generations as a family heirloom, encapsulating the couple in question and telling their story perfectly through the delicate embroidered details, lyrics, and images. Having trained at London’s Central St Martins, the U.K.’s most prestigious fashion design school, De Paula went on to perfect her craft at fashion houses such as Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, and Dior Couture before starting her eponymous bridal studio in 2015. Her designs, personal by nature, truly exist outside fashion’s seasonality to stand uniquely as timeless creations.
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Emma Beaumont
With a degree specialising in couture sewing techniques, Emma Beaumont started her bridal fashion business in 2013; and we’ve already seen her work in an Over The Moon wedding feature. It’s the intricate and beautiful details in her craft that make her designs really stand out.
Take her most recent collection, The Tabley Collection, which incorporates the juxtaposition of stunning floral embroidery with striking silhouettes to dramatic effect. Each of the eight dresses in the collection features a myriad of decorative touches such as pearls, beading, feathers and tassels offering truly unique looks. Naturally, her label comes into its own when creating bespoke dresses for her clients and this is where her talent for classic yet modern embroidery is seen to its best effect.
Charlotte Sweet Williams of Sewn Right
Dressmaker and owner of Sewn Right, a professional sewing and alterations company, Charlotte Sweet Williams is an incredibly talented designer and embroiderer. Offering bespoke bridal designs from her studio in London, Charlotte truly brings to life the vision of each client. Her skills and expertise have never been showcased more effectively than on her very own wedding day. Having sketched her favourite heart doodle and scanned it into her embroidery machine, she then used it to embroider onto her dress in three different sizes, and as miniature heart appliques to trim the stunning heart-shaped cutout at the back of her dress. Personalising the bottom of her veil with her new marital surname finished off her truly personal look to bespoke perfection.
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Eliza Jane Howell
This vintage inspired label, designed by fashion graduate Gill Harvey, is named after her grandmother. The designs incorporate a combination of textures and often play beautifully with French tulle and delicate hand beading and feathers. Such original looks give this label an overall impression of a heady mixture of 1920s and boho to create the most original and striking dresses; a bygone, fantasy era with even more fun. Even the veils are luxurious, with their soft heavy embroidery and embellishments making an Eliza Jane Howell bride truly stand out from the crowd.
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Kate Edmondson
London-based designer Kate Edmonson offers purely bespoke designs from her studio. Her creations are all about understated, relaxed elegance with accents of romantic embroidery for the modern bride. As with so many designers, Kate often takes inspiration from different eras; the stylish dropped waist of the ’20s, beautiful high-neck collars of the Victorian era and flowy ethereal silhouettes of the ’70s. Each dress is handmade with the personality of each bride at the core of the design. Delicate embroidery completes each design, adding contemporary bridal luxury to the overall look of each dress.
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Written by Dulcie Jones