Making a Classic LBD

In theory, making a dress is a relatively easy concept. You buy a pattern, find the fabric, cut the fabric, sew the dress, add buttons or trims. Done. But producing a dress on a larger scale is a little more complicated than this.
First the dress has to be designed. Many factors come into play here such as fit, wearability, and finishing. Sheena tested out her original LBD dress for a full year before it was produced, so that offered a lot of “road tested” comments. When it came to making the new LBD, we wanted to add design details keeping it versatile, yet classically simple. Some were for function (longer length, larger armhole and sleeve opening, reshaped princess seams) and others for fashion (covered button placket, upturned cuffs, detachable collar). We went through two rounds of fittings and sampling before approving the final fit and finishing of our new Classic LBD.

Then a fabric is chosen. We developed our own proprietary fabric after several discussions about what would be best for this dress. We finally settled on a organic cotton / silk blend in a jacquard weave. This was an ideal choice for a dress that could be both casual and dressy, comfortable and chic. But developing a custom fabric isn’t always easy. We insisted on organic cotton from India, which is in short supply at the moment, so sourcing it took a little longer than we anticipated. It took about 45 days for the yarn to be sourced and the fabric to be custom woven for us. But once the fabric was finally ready it was well worth it as it looks and feels great!
Now that the factory has cut the fabric, they are busy sewing the dresses. Sewing can take anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks depending on the quantity of dresses we ordered. We didn’t want to rush the factory as there are a lot of very detailed finishings inside this dress and we want them to be perfect.
Finally the dresses will be shipped to us and then to you in our reusable custom printed logo tote bags, instead of the standard plastic polybags used to ship most garments to stores and customers. This was another decision we made to reduce unnecessary waste.


And so now you know a little more about the production of our Classic LBD. We thank you for being so patient while we went through this process.
We hope you love your new dress!
xx. Tara St. James