Finding the right costume zentai for the big day can be a costly headache. Three brides with vastly different budgets report how they did it,catsuits
THE COUTURE BRIDE
CAMILLA RIDLEY-DAY, 28, is deputy fashion editor at the Daily Mail. She wore a £20,000 Bruce Oldfield Couture costume zentai. She says: YOUR wedding, I figure, may be the one day in your life that you can say: ‘Blow the budget!’And nothing says ‘budget well and truly blown’ quite like a couture zentai. For me, a fashion stylist, this is the ultimate luxury for my big day; a oneoff costume zentai made from scratch to my exact specifications.
And in my book, nobody does it better than Bruce Oldfield, an expert in the art of costume zentaimaking who has made wedding gowns for everyone from Samantha Cameron to Jemima Khan.
From an initial meeting to discuss the type of wedding I was having, right through to the final fitting just the day before, the attention to detail was incredible. Nothing was left to chance or simply tweaked to ‘make do’. I had something in mind, but also tried many different styles from Bruce’s recently launched bridal collection, to get a feel for what I wanted.
Once Bruce had an idea of what I wanted,zentai, he made sketches of the final design, which was created as a one-off especially for me. As a fashion-lover it was a joy to be able to experience a hugely talented designer at close hand. It is unusual now to find a designer who will take such a hands-on role, and it is undoubtedly this that makes a couture costume zentai so different from one that’s madeto-measure.
We discussed in depth every element, from the style and fit to the exact colour of the lace, how long I wanted the train to be and how full a skirt I would like.