A feathery dress for Stephanie Jackson

This coquette dress made in ostrich feathers and silk chiffon, was designed especially for Stephanie Jackson to been worn for her wedding in 2012.
The actress wanted to wear a sexy short dress for her reception and we created this stylish dress.
Miss, Jackson has recently appear in the TV show “Up All Night”

Lezu makes dress for GLEE

InStyle Article.

Lea Michele’s character Rachel Berry headed to the courthouse to marry high school sweetheart Finn Hudson(Cory Monteith) on last night’s Glee episode—and we got the inside scoop on her bridal look! The ’50s-inspired tea-length dress and veil are custom pieces created by the Glee team in collaboration with Patricia Nevil of the L.A. bridal boutique L’ezu, the show’s costume assistant Mojdeh Daftary explained to InStyle.com. “We were very happy with the episode last night,” Daftary told us. As for the inspiration, they looked to an icon: “We used Audrey Hepburn’s wedding dress in Funny Face as inspiration for Rachel Berry’s dress.” The similarities are clear!

Feathers Short Wedding Gown

I am having my client trying the dress for the first time with the top and skirt without being sewn together.
By doing this I can see if there are any alterations to the garment; such as:
-Do we need to add more feathers?
-Is the bodice fitting properly?
-Do I need to make more gathers on the bodice? or perhaps a belt?
After having this fitting we decided that we wanted to add a shoulder strap and a belt.
I am back on the draping mannequin and will have the client for a final fitting within a week.

Here I am showing you how I work with the feathers.
-First we mark the fabric in this case the Chiffon.
-Second we place the feathers one row at the time, then sew that row by hand before placing the second row.
-Third, I add other kind of feathers and sew them individually so I cover any empty spaces in between.
-We at lezu like to work by hand most of our garments, we only use the sewing machine when closing seams or adding stronger elements, such as bones.
After this step, we will have a fitting with the bodice and the skirt separate, we do this in case we need to do any alterations or add more feathers.

How to mark a Chiffon skirt to apply feathers

This is the part that takes most of my time. The good thing is that working at Lezu I can take my time as precision is very important and you need patience for that.
Now I have finished marking the Chiffon skirt with thread every 2.5″ so I can start placing the feathers and sew them by hand.
Before I do that, I aligned the panels of the skirt to make sure the marking match with the side seams and center back seam. (see photos)
Ok, ready for the next big step?

One more thing I want to mention; before we place the feathers, we need to connect the panels of the skirt together and, for that I like to sew them with a french seam.
(a french seam is a term that defines a seam stitched first on the right side and then turned in and stitched on the wrong side so that the raw edges are enclosed in the seam)

Step 4

Now that I am done with the bodice, I start with the skirt part.
-First I will cut the skirt base as a pencil style, sew it and put it aside. For this I use Silk Dupioni and lining.
-Second I will cut the upper skirt in Chiffon that is going to be use for sewing the feathers on.
-Third I marked the chiffon with thread where the feathers are going to be sewn by hand. To mark I use a dotted paper so the lines can be even, I also hold the fabric with weights to keep it  in place.
Here is the photo of how I marked the skirt at Lezu.

Step 3 Bodice Draping

Last time I show you the left side of the bodice draping, now I am showing you
how the right side looks once that is draped.
I used the same amount of fabric to drape both sides.
I cut 2 triangles of chiffon and started the draping on the bias side of the triangle.
The bias cut will give me the the elasticity I need to pull the fabric to its tightest.
Once the draping was done, I closed the neck line with the lining but still left the waist open in case I need to do some alterations.

I draped the back in a more simple way, just crossing the back horizontally.

Steps For Draping A Couture Gown

Now that we have the basic bodice as shown in the step 1, I was able to drape and create my own style.

Here I am showing how I draped the left side, holding tight in every angle with pins, then basting the edges to make sure it does not loose the gathers after sewing it with the machine.

Making a couture gown takes time and patience, it is good to walk away few times and come back to the work, so you can see any mistakes or flows and will be able to fix them.

Now this bodice is ready to be sewn by machine and then will be back on the mannequin for further draping.

Steps For Draping A Couture Gown

My first step before I start draping a bodice in any fabric is to prepare the base of the garment, this means to have it sewn and with bones.

Then I pinned it to the mannequin and make sure is tight and as smooth as its possible.

Now is ready for draping.