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My name is Chantal &
I specialise in creating made to measure, one off gowns
designed
specifically for each client - the service I provide is the
ultimate couture experience:
I have a file of design sketches 2 inches
thick & a highly unusual array of fabrics samples to choose
from, your final design may involve, the use of silks, velvets, lace,
printing, embroidery, appliqué, beading with Swarovski crystal
components or pearls & other beads or the subtle addition of
tiny Swarovski crystals called hotfix which look wonderful applied
like a shimmer of jewels to light, transparent fabrics like
georgette's.
There are no
more costs involved to have a completly new design created for you
than to order a gown like one of my samples or very similar to one of
my sample designs.
The samples
in the Gowns Portfolio serve as inspiration, each design I have chosen
to make up fills a gap in my collection. Yes, it is a beautiful design
in it's own right but it also serves to show brides a different type
of fabric made up, a new sleeve, new trimmings, new neckline, new
skirt; that the bride can try on to help cement her own vision of her
perfect dress.
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I make up each commission myself, nothing is sent to
outworkers. There are also hours of hand work involved in the creation
of a couture gown, much of which is on the inside of the corsets &
never seen.
I am a Couture Designer
first & foremost but a designer who chooses to continue to
make up the commissions herself, so as to have complete control
over the commission from start to finish & maintain true
couture standards.
I detest the use of outworkers
used by many designers, some of whom do not even possess the
skills to fashion their own creations from initial design through
to completion. I am also therefore, by default, a couture
dressmaker & I believe there is no reason, other in the
pursuit of more financial rewards, why the designer should
not also be the person who creates the vision - the design can
alter & grow all the way through the commission & there is
no one more qualified to create a gown than the designer
themselves.
I pride myself on being able to
follow through from even the wildest design concepts on paper, to
a design that looks like the original design sketch without
needing to rely on a team of highly skilled cutters, seamstresses
& beaders without whom, for some 'designers', there would be
no finished product. In my mind, if you do not understand how to
cut & construct your idea, you cannot truly call yourself a
designer.
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As part of the service I provide, clients can seek my
advice as a designer & stylist on the rest of the bridal party's
outfits, hair & make-up, flowers, jewellery & accessories etc.
 My
gowns are created in house at my studio in the UK.
Please note: Many designer &
manufacturer gowns being sold in the UK are not made here but are made
in China. Furthermore: In some stores MADE TO
MEASURE does not mean 'made to measure' & can mean made to a
standard size in China & altered here at additional cost to the
client.
Please pan
down to the bottom of the page to read more & to understand the
differences between Manufacturers, Designers/Couturiers &
Dressmakers.
So to answer the most frequently asked
questions:
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Can a gown be made in
another colour?
Yes, providing the fabric you want
comes in that colour or we can source an alternative.
Can I change the skirt
style? Most typically these questions relate to having a
smaller full skirt & less 'fitted' straighter skirt than the
fishtail
Y es, there are many skirt
options we can discuss most of which can be adapted to suit your
figure, without compromising the overall design.
Can I have something different to
the gowns on the site?
Absolutely! Please do, I can share
ideas & brain storm with you, until the cows come
home.
However that said, please don't ask me to copy other people's work
& I do not make up designs a bride has designed herself,
though obviously I will work with her to incorporate her ideas into
a one off design. If you have something you have completely
designed yourself, you will need to find an appropriately
skilled dressmaker or costumier, whichever seems more appropriate or
a designer who is not so precious about making up
designs that are not their own.
The
way of working showcased by Project Runway / Project
Catwalk where by, on the wedding dress episodes, the
models hand the designer a sketch & say 'make me this',
in no way reflects the reality of working with a designer
& is not how the process works. Those episodes are both
cringe worthy & embarrassing to watch. Neither do we trot
off to Berwick Street with our clients to pay retail for the
cloth, we have a much larger selection of samples &
shade cards from the UK silk suppliers*. Project Runway /
Project Catwalk
reflected how
the process works with a dressmaker, this is not what you should
expect from a designer.
*I noted that when the new series of
Project Catwalk (2) started, they were using one
of my London based suppliers & the contestants were
ordering from their shade cards.
* The world is
your oyster.
* The sky your
limit.
*
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PRICES & TIMESCALES:
Bespoke gown designs start from £2700 for
a straight style & £4000 for full skirted designs (subject to change without notice).
Gown prices include all consultations,
fabrics & necessary fittings & there are no
additional fees to have a gown designed especially for
you.
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If you are thinking of having a unique dress designed for you,
the gowns in my 'Gowns Portfolio' should be used as guide prices.
These reflect the realistic price you would expect to pay for
something to be made with a similar level of hand work, complexity,
trim & in fabrics which are similarly priced.
For example: Two designs, the second a more
elaborate reworking of the first:
Prayer: |
Elizabeth with straps: |
|
Plain silk. |
Silk brocade. |
| Piped seams. |
Hand beaded seams. |
| Some beadwork - hand strung straps &
hand beaded cross. |
More complicated design & cut - especially the
fans for the bust area. |
|
Hand strung straps & hand beaded
cross. |
| Made to measure - all fittings at the
showroom included. |
Made to measure - all fittings at the
showroom included. |
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| Price as is: £4200 |
Price as is:
£5300 |
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When deciding whether to book a consultation, please
apply a realistic budget, based on my advertised prices, to the style
of dress you have in mind. Brides have in the past come to discuss
Damsel, for example, assuming I can create the same dress, for
them, for less than the advertised price or that a different fabric
will shave thousands off the price.
The prices are published for a
reason & I
will not work
with substandard & unsuitable fabrics to reduce costs - I have to put
my name to that creation & will not compromise on my high standards &
the exclusivity of my work. The gowns are fairly priced for the amount of work
that goes into them & superior fit, especially when compared with off the
peg dresses*. Prices quoted are for made to measure & include all design consultations
& fittings undertaken at my studio & underskirts, hoops, etc., (where appropriate)*.
* Note: Prices for off the peg designs have
risen sharply in the last couple of years despite many now being made
in manufacturer's Chinese factories & shops often charge for
alterations to fit the standard size ordered to the client &
charge extra to buy or hire underskirts brides may have thought were
included when they first tried on the dress/underskirt combination in
the shop.
I make a very limited number of gowns a year &
pride myself on my made-to-measure corseted gowns fitting like a glove -
a fit that is achieved by starting the gown in the 6 - 8 weeks before
the wedding. With this in mind, it is essential that you contact me as
early as possible, so that should you choose to commission me to make
your bridal gown, you can secure the block in my diary closest to your
wedding date.
In my experience there are three
things that should be at the top of a newly engaged ladies 'to do' list.
Once you have set a date or group of suitable dates you must make
booking your civil venue / reception venue priority no.1. Once you have
the venue & your date the next two things on your list should be to
secure the photographer of your choice & if you want a
made-to-measure, dress designed for you, start seriously looking &
get your dream gown booked. Even off the peg dresses sometimes have
long league times.
Whilst sometimes it is possible to book a
commission in at short notice, for peak season weddings especially, it
is advisable to shop for your wedding gown a year or more in advance.
For me August is consistently the most popular month with my brides
& nearly always the first wedding I take for the coming year
will be an August date.
PRICE LIST
with access to a online
currency convertor for up to date US Dollar & Euro
prices.
*This price list was last updated in
March 2007. The prices shown are for bookings made by 31st December 2007
& will remain current until the price list is next reviewed. The
price list shown is subject to change without notice anytime from 1st
January 2008.
2008 Bookings:
I can still take some commissions for September weddings
onwards.
Please telephone me on 07973 777849 /
01296 661296 to enquire about your 2008 date.
2009:
I am currently taking bookings for
dates through to December 2009 (I will accept bookings up to 18 months
in advance of clients wedding dates).
DESIGN
CONSULTATIONS:
To view my collection you
will need to book an appointment for a design
consultation.
What to expect:
We
would normally start the consultation by sitting down & getting to
know eachother over a cup of coffee & whilst you browse through my
portfolios, we chat about your plans, what sort of gown you are after,
what image you had in mind, colours etc. This gives you a chance to see
if we are on the same wave length & could work well together &
gives me an opportunity to find out who you are & what you want
& need from your wedding dress, so that I can best advise &
guide you when you start trying on pieces from the
collection.
You
are free to try on as many gowns as you like during your consultation,
the idea being to find out what design details & design elements you
like & flatter your figure the most.
At
the end of the session we sit down & make some provisional sketches
based on our discussions, look at fabric samples & I will provide
you with a quote.
Consultations generally take anywhere between two &
four hours.
Appointments:
Appointments are avaliable seven days a week, with evening
appointments avaliable on Mondays, Tuesdays & Wednesdays. For more
information or to book an appointment, please submit an inquiry via my
contact page or telephone: 01296 661296.
Showroom location:
My
showroom & studio is in Luton, Bedfordshire, five minutes from
junction 11 of the M1 & about forty minutes by Thames Link train
from London.
You
can catch a Thames link train, which runs from Bedford to Brighton, from
the following London Underground stations:
Wimbledon,
Elephant
& Castle,
London Bridge,
Blackfriars,
City
Thameslink,
Farringdon,
King's Cross Thameslink,
Kentish
Town,
West Hamstead Thameslink.
For a complete list of all stations the train calls at
plus timetables, please use this website: www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk
CONSULTATIONS &
FITTINGS - a typical scehdual of
appointments:
Appointment/stage 1) Design
consultation - a design is decided upon & fabrics chosen (sometimes
clients choose to come back for
a second
consultation).
Appointment/stage 2) Measurements are taken & the
finer details of the chosen design discussed.
Appointment/stage 3) A
corset toile will be fitted & alterations noted. A number of design
elements will be checked & fitted.
Appointment/stage 4) The boned
base of the final corset is checked for fit & a number of design
elements will be checked & fitted.
Appointment/stage 5) The
corset, which is partially made up is fitted for a final time. The hem
length of the skirt decided etc.
Appointment/stage 6) The finished
gown is picked up.
Overseas
clients (Clients outside the UK)
Understandably 6 or 7 visits to my
showroom are often not possible for clients living outside of the UK.
Click on my 'Overseas
' link to read about solutions which can reduce the number of
appointments required & number of times you will need to visit the
UK, suggestions on how we can work around your time constraints &
how we can make your visits run as smoothly as possible & be as
productive as possible:
Copyright:
All the gowns & accessories featured on this site are
Chantal Mallett original designs. Both the designs & photographic
images on this web site are copyrighted to Chantal Mallett (unless
otherwise stated).
Cont: Many designers / bridal
stores in London & throughout the United Kingdom are
having their off the peg & 'made to measure' gowns made in
China or other countries like India because labour & fabrics are
cheaper, so when visiting other designers & stores, do not assume
your gown will be made in the UK, do ask questions.
In one London shop a lady was told that
the 'made to measure' £2500 gown she was discussing would be made
in Italy but later on she was told the gown would be made to a
standard size 10 in China & that she would have to pay a further
£400 for alterations - I was told that this store was not the only
one in that street having their gowns made in China though other
stores were honest about it.
The rule of thumb is that fittings are an inherent part of making to measure, as
is making the gown to fit an individuals measurements - altering gowns can
loose important details & fabric is not always avaliable
in the right spot to fit the gown as it should
be - altering will never achieve the same result as made to measure
& customers should not accept it, if sold a 'made-to-measure'
gown.
This is a sorry state of affairs, whilst it feels great
to order a made-to-measure gown from a smart London address, it certainly does
not feel as chic to discover your gown is being shipped in from China
& is no more made to measure than a gown bought from
Debenhams - stores have cut prices but only by compromising
on quality & service. It does however explain why more
& more bridal designers & manufacturers advertising in the
bridal press display a Union Jack.
Manufacturers,
Designers, Couturiers, Dressmakers - know the
differences:
Manufacturer's company
names or collections very often include words like 'Designer' &
'Couture' which make it confusing for Brides to identify the
manufacturers from designers or indeed what the difference is
between:
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Manufacturers - mass
production in factories, dresses cut often with economy over design in
mind, fabrics, trims & zips etc., often bought in
with price over quality in mind, variations in shades between batches
of fabrics so the dress ordered may be a different colour to the
sample dress in the shop & changes to designs, often without
notifying the stockists, so dresses ordered can be different to the
sample dress when it comes. Shops regularly having to chase up dress
orders with the brand's UK office, which in turn faxes China or
wherever The UK office doesn't come back to the shop, the shop
calls again & is told they're waiting for the factory to get back
to them or it's stuck in customs & so it goes
on.
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Designers &
Couturiers - generally smaller companies - some have work made up
in factories at home or abroad (see above) or have outworkers but
I would expect better quality work, cuts & finishes,
especially from anyone using the term 'couture', than from the
big manufacturers. Others work alone & make the dresses from start
to finish themselves.
If you are not sure, a rule
of thumb is that if a label has a lot of advertising in the
magazines - a run of several pages or is in most of the top magazines on
the shelves (You & Your Wedding, Brides, Wedding) it is almost
certainly a manufacturer (small companies can neither afford to do
this level of advertising or need to, to fill their order books).
Another rule of thumb is that if an advert lists stockists the
label is a manufacturer & another that if it's stocked in a normal
bridal shop it is probably a manufacturer's label & therefore
mass produced. If you want to know where a dress is made - check
the label or ask - the shop will know & if they say they don't, they
are either not privy to that info - in which case ask the
manager/owner or do not want you to know. My friend who supplemented
her own range with manufactured ranges (hence my knowledge of
manufacturers mentioned above) knew where all the brands came from &
often had to consider effects like Chinese New Year on the league times
she was quoting clients.
During my
friend's 'manufacturer' time she experienced dresses coming in, in
very different shades to the sample, the wrong dresses coming in,
other shops orders being sent to her marked 'urgent' & it
taking days for the company to have them collected & redirected,
another dress came in with the wrong colour trim (style change),
unfinished dresses - boning missing, etc. & the stress due to the
aforementioned & dresses not arriving when they should, people not
updating her & brides chasing dresses that she wasn't in a possition
to tell them when their dress would arrive or indeed what stage it was
at because no one was telling her.
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Dressmakers - most
normal dressmakers would work from standard shop bought patterns &
would have limited pattern cutting abilities. They normally wouldn't
be able to offer their services with regards to design &
often require clients to buy in their own fabrics. Standards of
workmanship can vary wildly - some are very poor indeed, a few sew to
couture standard, most, one hopes, are a happy medium between the two.
Though I have rarely been impressed with the workmanship I have
seen on Bridesmaids dresses clients have had made using local
dressmakers & in some cases I have been truly shocked
& in one case I ended up making the Maid of Honour's bodice
because, after two attempts (one from a pattern I had cut for the
client because their dressmaker could not make hers fit) the bodice
was still terrible & the dressmaker had made it clear she wasn't
doing it again. When using dressmakers, ask to see examples of their
work & photos of clients in dresses they have made. If your design
is very different to the usual styles they make, satisfy yourself that
what you're asking them to make is not outside their comfort zone.
While is it possible to come away with a dress that is sewn
well & meets your brief if you find the right person for the
job, it is also possible you can end up with a dress that looks
terrible & would not meet the standards for a mass produced shop
bought garment.
For adult Bridesmaids dresses I think it's always
worth looking at evening dresses at Christmas time (& shoes) &
Monsoon, Karen Millen, Ghost, etc.
The above notes are made based on this designer's opinion,
experience & knowledge gained working in the wedding
industry.
To go to
Chantal Mallett's home page click here www.18thcenturycorsets.com
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