The making of a dress

Have you ever had an experience where you thought that someone was listening to you, but then it became apparent that somewhere along the line your attempts at communication were failing? I dealt with this in relation to my wedding dress for the event in Kenya.

There aren't any wedding dress shops on Clove Island, and I wasn't sure that it would work to get a wedding dress in Nairobi in our two weeks there immediately before the wedding, so getting a dress sewn on Clove was the best option I could come up with. How many tailors on Clove Island have seen a western-style wedding dress up close? How many would be brave enough to sew one from scratch? Well, I talked with a tailor friend in my neighborhood, showed him a sample picture, and he confidently agreed that he could sew it, and it would be beautiful!

The picture:

The first catch? I needed to find the material. I took a couple of tours of town looking for material, not finding something that really fit with my vision. Next I tried a town up the hill known as "Dubai" for it's shopping options. No material sold by the meter there, but I did find a set of curtains that looked promising. I snapped a picture and showed it to the tailor, he agreed that the material would work, and off we went to buy it!

He took and sewed, telling me to return the next day for a fitting... and this is where I should have started taking pictures. But perhaps I was so shocked I didn't want something to remember it by!

The first rendition of The Dress featured:

- an ankle length skirt

- off-center crossover front with 

- gaudy gold trim

I gently gave him feedback: it's nice, I can see what you're doing, but it needs to reach the floor, should be a simple v-neck, no gold trim.

"Great! Thank you for your feedback. We're going to make it exactly the way you want, and it will be beautiful!" 

Second rendition: top layer reaches the floor, under layer is still ankle length, centered crossover front, cream lining...

My feedback: all of it needs to reach the floor, not a crossover front, should be one piece of material, lining needs to be white.

"Great! Thank you for the feedback. We'll make it exactly the way you want it!"

Third rendition: under layer still ankle-length, bodice is one piece, but is a round neckline instead of a v, lining is white.

Feedback: all of it needs to be longer, v-neck not round, and it's time to talk about the waistband. Let's get a wide, white ribbon and sew it onto the waistline.

Next: the bodice is suddenly too short and the waist too high, instead of a waistband, he's made a sash out of the top layer of material, fastened in the front to tie in the back.

Feedback: No sash. Just a waistband. A white ribbon, sewn on as a waistband.

Next: shiny silver ribbon sewn on as a waistband. At this point I gave up on the getting the waistband the way I wanted it, and asked my cousin in the US to pick up some ribbon for my parents to bring with them. I'd take care of that myself.

After several more tries, working on getting the bodice the right shape and the length right, we finally had an acceptable dress! And what was it, one week before I was leaving to get married?

Well, it was beautiful. Not exactly what I had wanted, but I enjoyed wearing it. And the story... well that will last a lifetime!