Finding a beautiful wedding dress or evening dress can sometimes be difficult.  But if you would prefer to wear a stunning white or black suit?  That can feel impossible.

In addition to our custom dressmaking shop, A.J. and I run a top notch men’s tailoring business (Denver Bespoke) which specializes in non-traditional and individually handmade suits for guys.

Each of our suits is designed from the top down to fit the body and the style of the individual customer.

We can get thousands of different types of wools and silks, and whether you are looking for a solid or a stripe, we can almost always provide a number of options in the color and quality that you desire.

Tuxedo Jackets

Over the past several years, we have recognized the demand for custom women’s suits of all types and have been able to combine traditional tailoring with traditional womenswear techniques to create pieces that are beautifully tailored but designed to fit well on women.

We do many suits for same sex weddings every year, making pieces for some of the most amazing lesbian weddings all over the world.

For brides, getting something that is unique and made to fit your personality and body type, can make all of the difference.

We also make many suits for difficult to fit women in many professions where looking sharp and distinctive is at a premium.

Finally, we often make tuxes and other garments for performers to wear on stage and at movie premieres.

The pictures in this listing show a few of our most recent styles…..

The black suit is made from fine wool crepe with a cowl neck top cut from silk metallic paisley.  The style is a cropped tuxedo jacket that ends at the thinnest part of the waist for an utterly slimming effect that lengthens the legs.

The pant is boot cut for a very modern and trendy look.

We can make cropped tux jackets in many many different styles, and a sketch showing more of the styles is attached.

The white suit is shown accessorized in two ways.  First as a three piece women’s suit with a hand-dyed and hand-woven silk matka vest in rose, and second with a silk velvet burnout blouse in our popular cowl style.

The suit jacket is cut from a gorgeous brushed wool that is always crisp and won’t wrinkle for your photos.

A classic sailor collar gives the piece a feminine touch and adds a bit of distinction to the traditional look.

The pants for this piece are full pleated pants with a wide leg.

Pants of this sort, although more traditional than a bootcut, stylize and flatter the figure.

Suit Jacket Catalog

Our jacket catalog is attached as well.  Every detail can be mixed and matched, and once you contact us, we will work with you to create a style that is ideal for you.

Suit Jacket Catalog pg2

To contact us about getting started on a suit, send me an email (superhero@vigilantelabs.com) and I (Lianna) will get back with you asap.

You let us know a bit about yourself and your style and we start sketching.

This dress, however, is the one that I have been promising to post for the last few months:  My own wedding dress.

As a designer and dressmaker, choosing the right fabrics and details for a once in a lifetime experience is especially challenging.  

I had so many strange and wonderful ideas and obsessions, spent so much time thinking about different colors and textures.

What I ended up making was partially based on a pattern that I recreated in my size from a Victorian-era fashion magazine, and partially emerged from my own fantasies and a lot of thought about what would look good on me.

The base fabrics are hand-underlined silk duppionis:  iridescent gold and brown for the body, with flowers handcrafted in purple, teal, and gold-orange iridescent colors.

Hand underlining the silks adds structure and wrinkle resistance and makes it possible to sculpt the silks into any shape you can dream up.

The front of the dress has a wide panel of tulle that is gathered over the base fabric to add dimension and texture.  The green detailing on the bodice is made up of many sewn on iridescent beetle wings.  The wings of these gorgeous Asian dung beetles can be pierced easily with a needle—a traditional Victorian needlecraft.

My hat is made from sculpted leather and was made to go with the outfit by ArtsMyths here in Denver.

So if we are making you a dress, we can definitely help you out with a hat as well, either a silk, straw or wool hat made by us or an incredible leather hat made by Tiffany Smyth of ArtsMyths and her workshop.

We specialize in making non-traditional wedding dresses.  Some of them are tea-length 1950s style dresses.  Some of them Victorian and Edwardian.  Some of them incredible fantasy dresses.  And many of them are in full color—white dresses are gorgeous but don’t look great on everyone.

We also do make dresses for customers all over the world.  To make sure we get the fit right, we mail you a cotton mock-up of the dress first to try on.  You send us digital pics of yourself wearing it, and we alter the pattern so that we can get something that fits you wonderfully.

We can make dresses to fit every size and shape!

If you are thinking about a custom dress, please contact us via email (superhero@vigilantelabs.com) and we will get started sketching something unique for you and sourcing gorgeous  fabrics from around the world.

Amazing photographs are by Denver/Fort Collins area photographer Sarah Christine Photography.  Be sure to check out her website if you are getting married in Colorado!

Our Wedding, Suits and Dresses from Our Shop

1950s style dresses—which are fitted at the waist and full in the skirt—are one of the most flattering silhouettes for all body types and figures.

We make a ton of 50s style dresses in all sizes, often for weddings, but also for other formal and semi-formal occasions and for customers in Colorado as well as around the world.

You choose from hundreds (or even thousands) of fabrics, and we sketch your ideas until we find something that you just love.

A.J. and I just got married ourselves, which was quite an experience for us, given that we make the outfits for client’s weddings every week.

A Dress By Charles James from The Met Museum

For our own wedding, we weren’t content to make just the bride and groom’s attire, but also insisted on making as many dresses, vests, shirts, and hats as possible.

I will post more about my own dress sometime in the next week.  This posting is about my second favorite dress at the wedding—the one we made for AJ’s mother.

Charles James from The Met Museum

She had seen my Pinterest pins of my favorite designer from the period, Charles James, and wanted to see if we couldn’t design her a dress in the same vein.

After some sketching, we settled on a dress with a large pleated cowl.  The dress has sleeves that sit off the shoulder, a built in corset, a flared skirt, and a large silk flower on the sash.

The fabric is an iridescent purple and bronze silk duppioni.

Like many of our couture dresses, this one is completely hand underlined in cotton.  This underlining makes the seams crisp, the body wrinkle resistant, and the shapes and forms of the dress utterly sculptural.

We can make full length 1950s style dresses as well.  But tea length dresses are wonderful for weddings as well and can be a more flattering length for certain clients.

We muslin fit most of our dresses so that we can get just the perfect fit and look for each customer.

Dress Sketch

This means that we mail you a mock-up of the dress that is cut from cotton so that you can test out  the fit and look before we make the dress.

You send us digital pics, and we adjust the pattern to get the look just right.

This means no local alterations.  Everything is included in one price.

Local customers are,  of course, welcome to come in to fit the muslins in person.

So if you have ever wanted to look like Liz Taylor or Grace Kelly, we can help.

Contact Lianna K. (superhero@vigilantelabs.com) to get started on a custom dress and we will send swatches and sketches.

It might be strapless–but it doesn’t have to be.

It might be white–or gold or silver or pink.

It might be a classic style that everyone will love—or something eccentric, bold, utterly simple, or madly embellished.

A wedding gown from the store is one that has to “mostly” fit well and flatter 100s of body types.

It is one that 10,000 customers across the country will need to buy for the designer to make money,—so anything too different must be avoided.

A custom wedding gown is a gown that is designed from top to bottom to look great on your body.  The waist of the gown can be placed at the exact spot on your body that looks best.  

Its cup-size begins life as your cup size.  And the sleeves and hem are cut for your height the first time around.

But the real beauty of a custom gown is that it is designed for you and can be as rich with everything that you love as you can imagine.

We work with you sketching ideas and sourcing fabrics that match your taste and give your wedding a style that matches you and your setting.

The outfit in these pictures is from a recent steampunk style wedding and draws upon Victorian sporting dresses.  

The gown is floor length, but cut with handmade suede ribbons with brass buckles that allow the hem of the dress to be raised off of the ground for dancing and strolls in the woods.

The skirt itself is made from two tones of iridescent silk duppioni that change colors depending on the angle and look incredible as the sculpted folds of the bustle.

The corset is made from leather and an iridescent brocade fabric with a medallion pattern and is worn over a cotton batiste blouse with suede straps to cinch in the belled sleeves.

Also shown in the pics is a matching silk mini-top hat with leather and peacock feather embellishments.

The groom’s matching outfit (which we made for our menswear shop www.DenverBespoke.com) has a matching vest and string tie, with a brown tropical wool duster and pant and a stand collar shirt.

All of our wedding dresses are MUSLIN FIT.    For this process, we first make a mock-up of the pieces to mail to you (if you are a national or international customer) or fit in person (if you are local).

You try the pieces on and send us your comments on the fit and digital pics, so that we can analyze the fit and adjust the look so that it is perfect on you.

Using this technique, we make pieces for weddings around the world.

Full length silk custom dresses start at $1200.  This includes the muslin fitting, your choice of hundreds of fabrics, a completely unique design, and couture dress structuring with hand underlining (for a stunning sculptural look).

But much of the cost of a dress is the embellishment and fabric, so some dresses are much more expensive.  Let us know if you are on a budget and we can design something that will keep within your price range.

Because each dress is fully custom and muslin fit, the prices include any and all possible alterations (usually we don’t need to make any!).  So when you think about pricing, keep in mind that alterations on store bought dresses often cost hundreds of dollars.

To get started on a custom dress contact Lianna K (superhero@vigilantelabs.com) and we will get back to you with sketches and swatches.

The pics show some of the favorite pieces that we have made recently.

But we can really make anything you might like.

Our long flared Redingote coats are some of our most popular items and the pics show a few custom versions.

One in navy blue wool melton (a heavy felted wool), one in pale green embroidered linen, and one, with a hood, that is cut from a deep olive green worsted flannel and lined in scarlet paisley.

The steampunk map coat that is shown is made from a heavy tapestry brocade that has great body, and has gear buttons.

This coat is shown in a plus size, but every coat that we make can be cut in larger (and smaller) sizes as well.

The ivory coat is a 3/4 sleeve cotton trench coat in spring weight cotton twill.

The remainder of the coats are some of our awesome leather jackets.

The black coat is a motorcycle jacket that is cut from genuine shearling lambskin with a sueded exterior and classic salt and pepper fur inside.

The collar is cut from longhair toscana sheepskin.  It is shown with a braided leather belt that we cut to go with the coat and decorated with metal studs.

The coat is unique and shaped to match the raw edges of the hides.

The deep rust color leather jacket is a custom safari jacket cut from beautiful suede with a leather belt.  We can make safari jackets in wools and leathers in a multitude of colors and styles.

The reddish brown jacket is a bull hide motorcycle jacket with a shearling collar and trim.

Shearing is wonderful as a collar, and the short navy zip up coat with a shearling collar was another of our favorite projects.

Finally the brown coat with a fur collar is one of our custom deerskin dusters.  

This one with a collar made from sheared beaver, rust stitching, and embossed Victorian-era copper buttons.

Mixed in are also a couple sketches so you can see how we work.

Once you contact us, we will start designing something just for you, sending you sketches and leather or fabric ideas.  

We make coats for customers all over the world, so if you aren’t in Denver, just let us know and we will send you measuring tapes and discuss ways in which we can completely guarantee a great fit.

We are a small couture studio and everything that we make is made in our workshop here in Denver.  

Because we handle everything from design, to patternmaking, cutting and sewing, we can make garments that are remarkable and unique and utilize many many techniques.

To get started on a coat, just email Lianna K. (superhero@vigilantelabs.com).

Wedding Dress Sketch

When we make a wedding dress for a customer, we help you think about not only the parts of the garment that show, but also about the hidden parts of the garment that make the body look awesome.

Our Studio

Our little workshop has been hard at work making dresses and suits for the many weddings that we have booked this summer.

So many amazing looks!

But some of the most fun that I have had has been working on the pieces for a wedding that is particularly important to me—my wedding!

The sketch shows the most recent version of my wedding dress that I am working on.

But the pictures show our engagement photos.

I spent so much time making the corset and petticoat that will be worn under my dress that I thought they deserved their own photo shoot.

Not too often that a wedding photographer gets a request to do the engagement photos of the bride in the undergarments that she will be wearing for the wedding!

But these aren’t just any undergarments.

The corset is made from a heavy denim with steel boning and hand-embroidered sea creatures.

The petticoat (which I will wear under the dress to make it poof out in the back) is made from a cotton twill with horsehair bands on the ruffles to make them keep their shape.

Both pieces are completely washable and can be worn for years to come under other dresses, for costume parties, and on the dancefloor.

The groom is wearing some of our custom tailored menswear pieces (check out www.DenverBespoke.com for more of our menswear).

The vest is a military style regency piece made from seersucker and linen and is shown with a hand shaped wool felt cowboy hat.

We are a small couture studio located in Denver, Colorado and we make custom dresses and suits for customers around the world.

One of our specialties is making attire for unique and alternative weddings.

Why get married in a dress made in Asia if you can work with us to design every part of your look down to the undergarments?

All of our wedding dresses are fit using out muslin fitting technique.

For this, we draft a unique pattern to your measurements (we can mail you a measuring tape if you are a distance customer) and then cut and sew a rough cotton mock-up of the dress to mail to you.

You try it on and send us you feedback and digital pics, and we alter the dress pattern to fit you perfectly before we even cut the final pieces.  (If you are near Denver, we can also fit this in person).

This means that we can make a beautifully fitting dress for every shape and size.

No worries about cup size, waist size, height.  We start with your body type and build a dress from there.

Plus-size and petite customers are welcomed.

Our prices for a full length dress start at around $1200—but if you just want a petticoat or corset the price will be much less.

Contact Lianna K (superhero@vigilantelabs.com) for more info and we will get started designing something just for you.

Engagement pics by awesome Denver-area photographer http://www.sarahchristinephotography.com

Traditional Jackets

Every suit that we make is completely custom.

We work with you to design something that is exactly right for your taste, body type, lifestyle, and the events that you attend.

High Fashion Jacket Styles

We make business suits, trendy blazers, Victorian inspired tailcoats, and tuxedos in all women’s sizes.  So whether you are looking for a piece for work, fun, or a wedding, we can make something just for you.

The sketches in this posting show some of the styles we are working on right now.  So definitely let me know if any of them seem like a good place to start for designing your piece.

Sportswear Blazers

The first sketch shows some options for a classic jacket with point shawl, notch, and peaked lapels.

The second sketch shows a mixture of high fashion jacket styles including business and formal styles with shawl, notch, lark’s tongue and peak lapels.

Victorian Jackets

Most of these styles would be perfect for formal wear as part of a white or black women’s tuxedo (we make lots of gorgeous tuxedos for lesbian weddings).

The third sketch shows some sportswear styles with subtle military detailing.

And the final sketch shows some Victorian inspired jackets that cut away in the front and are perfect for weddings and special events.

All of our jackets can be made with a matching vest, pant, or skirt and can be made in thousands of different fabrics.

So just contact us with information about what you are looking for and we can send you swatches.

All of our jackets also include a muslin fitting.

For this, we cut and sew a muslin cotton mock-up of the jacket and mail this to you before cutting the final pieces.

You send us pics of yourself wearing the mock-ups and we alter the patterns to fit you exactly.  

This process allows you to get just what you want and allows us to make suits for customers around the world.

If you are thinking about ordering a custom suit for us, drop us a line at superhero@vigilantelabs.com with a bit about yourself and what you might like us to work on.

We are a full service couture studio located in Denver, Colorado and we make suits and dresses for customers around the world.

Wide Leg Pant

How do you do it?

For our retail clients who order a dress or suit, our whole process seems simple and straight-forward.  They tell us a bit about what they are looking for and we create a completely unique garment that fits them well.

For other dressmakers and industry professionals, this is a bit more confusing.  Or even somewhat astonishing.

Mod Dress

You mean that you can create, from nothing, a new style that looks exactly like a Victorian Worth dress or a 1920s sport coat or one of the dresses or winter coats from a top TV show?

And then you sell it for that little?  How is this possible?

Mod Dresses

Custom patternmaking is the backbone of what we do and we have spent years developing a system that allows us to turn out amazing patterns at a rapid pace.

Because we make so many more patterns than any other business aside from corporate fashion houses, we already know how to create every detail at a snap of the fingers.

Furthermore, we use a system of base patterns that has been shaped by taking thousands of actual measurements and creating thousands of sample garments which we then fit on clients.  The result is that we have a better understanding of fit and customer preferences than a freelance patternmaker could hope to achieve.

Custom Corsets

Custom Menswear

We call this system TheFrockEngine and over the next year we will be rolling out a large scale new offering to other dressmakers and fashionistas who are hoping to start or perfect their own businesses.

So if you are looking for the perfect patternmaker and the perfect pattern, we can help.

Our computer-assisted patternmaking is truer, cleaner, and based on a better data set than anything that most new designers can afford.

Leather Jackets

More than this:  We have better prices.  Because we don’t start from scratch each time, but draw upon thousands of existing and well-tested details, we don’t need to spend hours working out how to make something work, and our prices reflect this.

We combine old-school dressmaking techniques with cutting edge technology and superior data.  Making for results that are just right.

We can also grade the patterns into any number of sizes immediately and on site.  So if you are looking for a pattern in 5 sizes or 32 sizes, you don’t need to take the pattern elsewhere to have it graded.

So whether you are starting a fashion line or looking to expand your dressmaking business into more daring styles, we can help.  Just contact Lianna K. (superhero@vigilantelabs.com) to find out more.

An 1876 fashion plate from Harper's Bazar

We are making many wonderful wedding dresses this season, but especially exciting is the dress that I am making for my own wedding.

A.J. and I are getting married this summer and are planning our wedding attire.  Right now I am in the process of designing my dress.

If you order a custom wedding dress, I will work with you in much the same way to create a unique dress that reflects your style and inspiration.

Inspiration for a wedding dress can come from all sorts of places.

I have always enjoyed looking through old fashion magazines and studying vintage garments.

1875 Ball Gown from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The 1876 fashion plate to the left shows the general silhouette and details that I like.

Silk duppioni in a variety of colors, along with a maize taffeta and chartreuse duchess satin

The mid-1870s is a popular period for steampunk wear as you can get very creative with trimmings but the bustle shape is still fairly subtle and flattering.

The red dress pictured is from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, an extensive collection worth browsing online.

(And if you find a dress that you love in the MET’s collection, I would love to recreate it for you with some modern touches).

Worth dress c.1900 of flocked silk satin

I love the gathering & puffing details on the skirt, the lacing on the back of the dress, and the color.

I knew that I wanted to have a colored dress, and I can’t wait for the fabric swatches I ordered to arrive.

While the Victorian era saw the establishment of the white or ivory wedding dress, many brides at the time wore colored dresses that they would rework and wear again after the wedding (most wedding gowns of the time were high-necked and long-sleeved, so they would serve as day wear once retrimmed).

Silk duppioni is one of my favorite fabrics, and I hope to combine a main dress fabric of greenish gold with accents of vivid blues, violets, and greens.

A Haeckel illustration

A.J. and I have also been discussing using our vinyl cutter to create custom heat-transfer flock prints for parts of the dress, to create an effect like the 1900s Worth dress of flocked satin above.

Haeckel illustration of jellyfish

It is amazing how the panels of the dress are cut and sewn to maximize the effect of the print.  I was lucky enough to see this dress in person at one of my History of Costume classes held at the Met Museum when I was at Pratt.

For motifs, we are thinking to do something along the lines of an Ernst Haeckel jellyfish or other sea creatures.

Here is the sketch I did based on my ideas above.

The bodice will be fully boned with a lace up back.

I will trim it with tulle and flowers made of some of the accent colors of silk .  The panels of the bodice will feature some of placed flock printing towards the waist.

Lianna K's Wedding Dress

These flowers will also trim the dress in various spots.  The bustled overskirt is draped in front and back, and trimmed with tulle.  The underskirt will be covered in puffed tulle similar to the 1876 illustration.  The dress has a train and will be supported by petticoats and a bustle that I will make.  We will also do placed flock printing on the train.

As I select fabrics and begin creating the initial patterns for the dress I can rework the design further.

If you’re as excited about the Victorian era as I am, I’d love to make you a dress as well.

Using our unique muslin fitting process, we can get a great fit on a dress no matter where in the world you live and usually for less money than a dress plus the alteration costs for a factory made dress.

You send us measurements you take at home, and we make a full mock-up of the dress and send this to you to try on before we even cut the fabric.

Then we create a new pattern that is perfectly adjusted for your body, and everything is guaranteed to fit exactly the way you would like.

This means that we can draw from all of the spectacular dresses of the past to get something that is perfect for the present.

]]> http://denverdressmakers.com/?feed=rss2&p=753 2 http://denverdressmakers.com/?p=717 http://denverdressmakers.com/?p=717#comments Sun, 23 Oct 2011 07:06:16 +0000 admin http://denverdressmakers.com/?p=717 Imagine shopping for a dress when there are a virtually infinite number of choices in your size and all of them will fit you perfectly.

Imagine a catalog of dresses that includes every style of dress ever worn.

We can make the dress of your dreams.

Send us your favorite still of Audrey Hepburn or Elizabeth Taylor and we will draft a custom dress pattern for you that works with your sensibility and we will make it in your choice of thousands of possible fabrics.

The images show some  recent dresses that we made for a bridal party where each girl got to choose the style of her own dress.  These dresses are made from an elegant de-lustered satin.

We can make these same styles in a variety of wools, silks, cottons, and linens that will be perfect for your life and the events you plan to attend.

Just let us know what you might like and we will send you some swatches.

We have a variety of fitting options for customers who are local and who are from other parts of the world.

And a great fit is always guaranteed.  We make dresses in plus sizes as well!

Most dresses in this style will cost around $365 depending on fabric and fit options.

Once we have a chance to sketch some ideas and look at fabrics, we can give you an exact price.

If you are considering a custom dress, contact Lianna K (superhero@vigilantelabs.com) to get started.