Let’s make a bespoke dress
Last year I left my successful consulting business to become an artist.
I have always painted, drawn and created content for client work, but I never embraced my creativity in an authentic way. Until now.
The Makers: an artist and a dressmaker
I knew that I wanted to create designs for clothing, for my home, for my children, but I simply wasn’t brave enough, and I didn’t have the headspace to do it. I was too busy servicing clients and earning to support the family.
My health declined and I also found myself in the middle of perimenopause. My oldest, best friend from childhood sadly and suddenly died. What was I doing with myself? I was deeply dissatisfied with my work despite everyone else being happy with it.
I used to say to my social media manager, who was also a very good friend:
“Let’s start a something new!”
“Let’s do anything creative!”
“Let’s do something…else!”
And she’d laugh and say: “When do you want that next post to go out, hon?”
I sorted out everyone’s contracts, helped my client hire my replacement on the engagement we were on, and I walked away from good clients and good money — and with the blessing of my beautiful family — to follow my dreams.
How I made this dress
Guests have shared wonderful photos of from my launch event
It was quite by accident that I made this incredible hand made beauty. It all started when I hand painted this 90 x 90 piece for my gallery launch. I wanted to create a piece for my exhibition that showed the detail at scale in my silk scarves.
I decided to take the same design and create a silk dress for the event. First I contacted my friend, Felicity Westmacott, who is an incredible bespoke dressmaker. I asked her if it was even possible given the timescales and what she needed from me. Being a reformed delivery-focused consultant, I always begin with a discovery process and establish what I need to get the job done.
I had already drawn a dress design and had the fabric in mind, so she suggested finding an *ACTUAL* pattern to save us time. I conducted a lot of research already and had found a 1970’s vintage pattern for us to use. Little did we realise it was reversible (front to back), which aligned with my scarf ethos of wearing things your own way and viewing and sharing different aspects of our story as and when we feel like it.
Felicity also suggested fabric length and cutting on the bias, so I just needed to finalise my fabric design with my printing partner. I contacted my team in Macclesfield and was advised to create a repeating pattern, how many metres I’d need, and printing time. I work with the only sustainable Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS)-certified silk printer in the UK and they are superb. They regularly work with Liberty, Cartier and Hermès — the quality is outstanding and the team are just lovely.
Lovely guests from the launch
In order to create this 1 x 4 metre piece of silk, I decided to repaint the art as I didn’t want to wear a teal coloured dress. I repainted the art, digitised it, and edited it in photoshop to create the repeating pattern.
My team in Macclesfield sustainably printed and delivered my silk in 10 days. Incredible.
During this time, I had fittings with Felicity and she got to work as soon as the beautiful silk arrived. We had one more fitting to pin the hem and cuffs. My completely bespoke silk dress was finished in less than a month.
Would you order this dress?
Would you wear this design as a scarf?
Let me know in the comments, and if you’re interested in a bespoke dress, let me know.
About Kathy Kyle Studio
Kathy Kyle is an artist, illustrator and entrepreneur who creates ethical, sustainable wearable art. She creates custom and limited collections. This includes bespoke hand painted clothing, textile and surface design, and stationery. Her work is inspired by nature, the fast-talking dames of Old Hollywood films, and slow, vintage style. With 25 years as the ‘creative’ working in tech start-ups, branding, PR, art and climate advocacy, she has now launched the studio to ethically create wearable art.