Vintage Blue Tulle Ballerina Dress

I’m always drawn to pretty and romantic wedding dresses, so the inspirations that Victoria showed to me had me dreaming and longing to design something for her.
Delicate Chantilly lace, soft tulle in palest blue, white silk daisies, and vintage crystal motifs.
The dress has raglan style sleeves in a beige colour to tone, white was too bright for the soft and subtle look we wanted. I’m a huge fan of raglan sleeves, which kinda gives the look of a halterneck, and I find sculpts and frames the shoulders really beautifully.
Layers of tulle are pleated and draped over the body quite tightly so that the figure is emphasised, with help of an internal corselette. (A corselette is more subtle than a corset, it sculpts the natural body shape, rather than being tight a creating a new one - I don’t really make corsets).
The waist is further emphasized with a deep waist belt of vintage crystal motifs set and embroidered onto a gold grosgrain ribbon.
The skirts flare subtly to a ballerina style length skirt. Hand die cut daisies in white silk, and a few pale blue were sprinkled onto the hem, and a little on the shoulders for a sweet and delicate effect.
The pale blue tulle reminded me of some Dior designs from a few years back where they had used gold tulle (like this), which Victoria trusted me on, so we added some subtle gold tulle to the dress also.
Originally there was to be a deep lace border on the lining layer, which was a blue silk. It did look very pretty underneath the tulle, but Victoria thought it made the dress look a bit too formal for what she wanted, which was fair enough, so it was removed and we kept just a few lace motifs in the hip area for some subtle detail among the tulle. (That’s the benefit of bespoke - we can change at almost any time!)

I loved making this dress for Victoria! (although I say that about all of my dresses and brides to be fair!)

As an extra bonus, Victoria got to wear the dress again to an awards ceremony after she was nominated for a Bafta for a TV programme highlighting breast cancer called “The Real Full Monty”.