wedding attire

For my 2022 wedding to Gabe Levine, I designed, patterned, and sewed three dresses, and—with only days until the wedding—a 10-foot, detachable train for the first dress. I learned to sew in high school but had never made a pattern (let alone a dress) before. It was an intense couple of months of dissertation writing and sewing for almost all my waking hours, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

all photos taken by the extremely talented Inbal Sivan

taffeta

This was the last dress I made, but ended up being the first dress I wore on the wedding day. It was intended to complement the charmeuse dress: much more dramatic on the aisle but, as it turned out, much less dramatic to make.

taffeta + sleeves + train

I had always envisioned the the taffeta dress accompanied by a detachable train, but wasn’t finished with everything else until ten days before the wedding; it was a scramble and a gamble. The idea was to surprise Gabe twice: once during the “first look” and again with my walk down the aisle. The surprise came earlier than planned; he accidentally walked into the room where I was hiding.

charmeuse

Charmeuse is an extremely finicky fabric; if there is anywhere between no tension and almost full tension, it bubbles and looks really bizarre. For some reason, I was committed to making a fully charmeuse dress (with the exception of the interior of the waistband, which is made of satin). I love how it came out, but I’m probably going to pass on ever making another one.

marocain

This was my “I need to make a dress quickly because I’m starting to lose sleep over the possibility that I won’t be able to finish any dress before the wedding” dress. It was modeled after Hailey Bieber’s Saint Laurent 2022 Met Gala gown. I ordered the thickest silk fabric I could find because I was afraid it would be sheer; not sure the textile has a name so let’s call it marocain, another heavy silk weave.