Textile student creates multi-purpose wedding dress

April 26th, 2014

Motueka High School student Celia Kent has combined with the Dream Maker Wedding Planning Service to design a wedding dress that will be used in the company's wedding promotions.

The work was part of a school textile project for Celia, and wedding celebrant and planner Terri Everett provided work experience for her to develop the project.

"I'm a great believer in 'paying it forward' and every year I give opportunities to students to get work experience through my business," says Terri.

"Students have come to me with a whole host of projects from photography, dress making and administration. It's been a great success and a pleasure to see students flourish with their enthusiasm.

"We've had students from Sweden, France, America, Germany to name just a few, and some have gone on to be successful business people, but this season it was closer to home."

Celia approached Terri for help with her textile project, her brief being to design an outfit. There was no specific style or type but she wanted to try a wedding dress.

"I had already been thinking of a style of dress I would promote, as an event planner with a charter boat in the Abel Tasman. The typical traditional dress has often been a challenging to cope with due to mechanical obstacles and space.

"As a promoter of destination weddings and trying to capture the world market and encourage couples to choose Motueka as their destination not only for a wedding but their honeymoon too, my brief was to make a dress with three styles where they could be worn separately for different occasions, such as a shopping trip, evening meal and then of course the wedding dress.

"Celia impressed me throughout with not only needle skills but her idea and orchestrating the whole pattern which blended together to create a fantastic and unique outfit."

Terri, Celia and Amber Riddington, who is staying with Terri from the UK and studying photography, did a photo shoot using models from Motueka High School and other local businesses. (See photos of models Molly Dyer and Liam Reid, right.)

"The Takaka Caves was one backdrop I wanted to promote as a unique wedding venue and again where a short dress would be more practical," says Terri. "Andrew from Tasman Helicopters was super helpful by allowing us to photograph with his helicopter to bring the whole story line together."

The dress was shown as the wedding dress in the Caves and helicopter, a day dress in the countryside, and a day out in town with the Motueka Museum in the back ground to promote Motueka.

Celia impressed her teacher with the skills she used in the design, selection and choice of materials, colour co-ordination and detail.

"This was originally just my year 13 fabrics project but turned into something bigger involving many people and even a cave and a helicopter for the final photo shoot," Celia says.

"Most of my fellow class mates made a garment like a coat for a friend or a party dress, but I knew I wanted a challenge. And I definitely got a challenge making a multipurpose wedding dress - which just means that after the wedding, the dress can be worn for different occasions like a picnic or a party.

"I achieved this by splitting the layers of a wedding dress. There's the rich blue frilly skirt which acts as the petticoat giving the wedding dress an A-line silhouette. When part of the wedding dress, it cannot even be seen but when worn with a singlet it's a cute day outfit.

"Then the light blue chiffon dress which when worn on its own would be a cute day dress or when dressed up a party dress. Then of course a lace layer to give the overall wedding look.

"During this project I learnt so much from all involved about not only how to design and make a wedding dress but also things like time management (or my lack of), working with people and many other life skills that will stay with me and help me in my future careers.

"I would like to thank my client example Terri Everett from The Dream Maker, without whom I wouldn't have created such a diverse wedding dress.

"Terri also introduced me to many of her wedding industry colleagues who have helped me with this project - Jill from Puss Puss, Tasmin from Bache Design, Angel from The Wedding Whisperer, Andrew from Tasman Helicopters and the team at Ngarua Cave for allowing our photo shoot.

"I would also like to thank Alison's Bridal and my fellow students and models Liam Reid and the beautiful Molly Dyer particularly, who met and exceeded my expectations, I cannot forget my teacher Mrs Ryan who helped, inspired and supported my project."

A photo of Celia's final design sketch

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