Interview: Bridal Designer - Annalise Harvey

Annalise Harvey, 32, designs beautiful dresses for brides to be in her very own bridal  studio in Truro, Cornwall. Here, Annalise speaks about her inspiration for the collection ‘Nostalgia‘ and where the inspiration began to become a bridal designer.

How and when did you start out in fashion design and bridal wear?

Firstly, I trained as a costume designer. I had an interest in theatre from a really young age, andI used to watch costume movies endlessly. One day I decided I wanted to own some of those costumes and realised that the only way I was going to do that was by making them myself. I started to teach myself to sew and because I had always associated costume with theatre and my parents were involved with amateur dramatics, I went down the path of costume designing. That’s how it started. I spent ten years working in the theatre and during that time I made the odd wedding dress for friends and family, then when I got married myself  I designed my own dress. Soon after I got married my husband and I moved to Cornwall.

What motivates you when you are designing? 

I really love old clothes and I don’t mean what we have come to see just as vintage. Lots of people wear vintage clothing these days; they tend to be anything from the 20^th century from about 1940’s onwards. I really love those clothes and the vibe they give but I’m  drawn to the much older stuff, the things that people wore 400 to 500 years ago, right up to the Victorian era. I’m inspired by the way things were made, the way details were created, and how fabrics were used. Those things really inspire me in terms of the finish of the dresses I produce.  Additionally, for a costume designer it’s about communicating personality through clothing. The whole point of a costume is that you are helping the audience understand more about a character in a play or film through the clothes they are wearing. We all do it on a daily basis; we dress in a particular way to encourage people to think different things about us: we do it when we go to a job interview and we do it when we are going to a party,  so for me it’s that combination of  finish and detail you get in period clothes, cobined with the character of the woman that’s going to be wearing the dress. I am intrigued by how you can marry those two together. If in a hundred years time  a Brides wedding dress ends up in a museum  for people to see, I like to think they will get a sense of who she was.

Your bridal wear varies from 1920‘s onwards – what influences you about these particular eras?

They are slightly more accessible because the skirts came off the floor in the twenties and so I think we find it easier to relate to anything from  this era onwards. More so than the Victorian era because we are not used to wearing floor length skirts on a daily basis.  As a result  the vintage trend has encapsulated these decades and people are wearing original 20’s to 70’s clothing on a daily basis, especially the student populations! These eras are also still within living memory for a huge proportion of society which also makes them easier to relate to. With the Nostalgia collection particularly I wanted to try and reflect some of the current trend and interest in young people who have an interest in fashion.

Do you have any style Icons from those eras that inspired your collection?

Yes, there is one dress named Greta (named after Greta Garbo, the 1930’s Hollywood film star), a 50’s dress is named  after Grace Kelly, and there is a little sassy 60’s dress named after Lulu. All the dresses are named after the women that inspired them. There is one called Evangeline which was inspired by a early 90’s TV show, The House of Elliot. It was about two sisters that ran a couture house in London in the 1920’s and one of the sisters was called Evangeline - she was hugely popular - the women wanted to be her and the men all fancied her! Bizarre as it sounds that TV programme is what really inspired me to get into clothes, costume and sewing.

Do you have a favourite style of bridal gown, if so why?

I don’t,  I am lucky that my bespoke clients all have such interesting and varied tastes - I get to live vicariously through them. I love working on all of them, they are all so different and reflect who  that lady is, I think in terms of my own aesthetic I prefer the more fluid, drapier gowns with lots of movement and simple detailing but I do generally find that I go through different phases of what I like and don’t like which changes daily depending what mood I am in!

What type of fabric and embellishments feature on your dresses? 

I tend to only work in silk because it adds to the feel of luxury that my clothes have. I also love beautiful fine laces, a lot of the laces I use come from Belgium and France. It’s very rare that I produce a dress without lace  actually though it does happen.  My dresses aren’t massively blingy but with some new samples I have started to investigate some more hand beaded embroidered embellishment.

 What do you prefer head piece/hair accessory, veil or both?

It all depends on the bride, the dress and the way she is styling herself for the big day. I think veils in the right way can be dramatic, romantic and beautiful. I feel strongly that the wedding is not about the dress, it’s about the woman, the man and the relationship they have with each other. Sometimes you see brides in big dresses and big veils with lots of jewellery and you can’t see her and see who she is. I definitely believe in the ‘less is more’ approach but I don’t think veils are suitable all day so I would say go for both. 

What are the pros and cons to owning your own boutique?

I get to meet lovely people and get to be involved with them at a special and important time of their lives. Running your own business is hard work  and most people will setup their own business because they really like doing something specific. You then realise the business needs running as well as you doing the bits of your job that you love the most! I love the involvement with the client and being able to contribute to their special day, and I love that no two days are the same and that I get to create new things constantly. When people want to buy and wear the dresses that’s a reward in itself. It is really hard work though and the average working day for me is between 10 and 14 hours. I think that is part of being a new label and having to do the work yourself, from designing to marketing to cleaning the studio, it’s a lot of work for the person that’s in charge of the whole operation. 

When working with a bride to be how do you give her the personal bride experience based on dressing her figure and personality?

My brides will come in and talk to me about their plans for the big day and after an hour or so I get an idea of what they might like or don’t like. If they decide to commission a gown from me I have a process that I go through with them. On the basis of that initial discussion and images they have shown me, I do some more research and send them a selection of other dresses that are in existenceand then ask them to give me a commentary on the fine details of things they like and don’t like.  Once that comes back I then have a good bank of ideas that have come directly from the bride about what they want and that’s when I work all those ideas into a design. I will always look at their figures, it’s about balancing the client’s proportions not focussing on the dress size or body weight.

When you are having something made for yourself, you have a lot of control over the proportion and balance of the garment.  I will quite regularly say to my clients that although there are a few rules that you will have to try to obey within proportion and line, there is no such thing as the wrong dress or the wrong body. It is about finding the right silhouette that reflects that person and then working with  the proportions of their body to make sure it shows them off to their absolute best.

Finally, if you had any advice to pass on to a bride-to-be looking for the perfect wedding dress, what would it be?

If you are looking in a boutique and you can’t find what you want, remember it is possible to have exactly what you want.  I think brides should consider boutiques and designers at the same time as part of their research process. Very often I will get brides come to me because they cannot find what they are looking for. Boutiques and designers offer very different services and I think it is important to be well informed from the beginning when you are looking for the perfect dress. Planning a wedding can be a stressful time in people’s lives and in our society some women have a really difficult relationship with their bodies. In my experience the majority of women will have something they want to change about themselves and I don’t think diets and exercises are always the way to do that. It’s about having a dress that works with what you have, you really don’t have to compromise!

Photos taken by: Ashley Hampson (www.ashleyhampson.co.uk)

If you'd like to see more of Annalise's work or enquire about having a dress made visit www.annaliseharvey.com  for call 07979 20 55 74 or more information