Friday, May 17, 2013

Wedding Fashion; Real Stories Part II


I trust that you have had enough time to digest on our first lovely couple. J

So let us meet couple number 2: Moses and Faith.

I first knew these two through Moses. Very pleasant smart young IT gentleman, whom we attended the same church, as well as work together in mentoring teenagers. A couple f years back, I remember telling him he needs to get a social life (for he revealed to me he didn't have one, was a workaholic,  and for him it was the routine work, home church). The rest of the crew together with the youth pastor used to pester him about time ticking and he needs to start thinking of settling down.

Only about a year later, I believe, after getting his wheels thinking about life outside work and the norm, I got to discover that there was a lady in the background. Faith was her name. I had never seen her before, though she attended the same church. Faith is very quiet, reserved, but strong-willed, and would rather operate from the background than being in the spot light, hence the reason I had never noticed her before.
We began to communicate when Moses requested that I do a dress for her, for an occasion she was planning to attend. I did, she liked, and again I did a second one for her, and from then, she decided that she would want me to do her bridesmaid’s dresses.Click here and hereto have a glimpse of the outfits.

As I mentioned in my previous post, most brides tend to know what they want, so she presented me with the design she had settled with for her ladies. My job was to make it come alive. J

The Dress:

The Translation:
Two of the brides maids opted to have sleeves put on the dresses (another whole other post), so in the word of Timm Gun, We made it Work!

Here are the rest of the pics from their lovely wedding. :)



I am glad to have been a part of making this lovely union possible, and House of Valentcia would love to wish this lovely couple, a life time of joy and prosperity in their journey together. :)


Friday, April 12, 2013

Wedding Fashion; Real stories Part 1

Weddings are an aspect of fashion I have never quite thought of venturing into. However of late, I have already been involved in 3. A fellow designer once advised me, ‘NEVER DO WEDDINGS!!! They will eat you up pretty good.’

So I went ahead to try it out for myself (yes despite the warning). This will be a three part post highlighting the three weddings. They are of dear friends of mine, who approached me to help them out with the bridesmaid’s dresses, and I thought, though I may not have seen myself doing weddings, it would be great to help someone get their dream day fulfilled.

A few lessons I have learned during this period:

1.  Let the bride have her way- Designers are visionaries. They always have ideas of how an outfit should look like for a particular occasion. When it comes to weddings though, the bride pretty much already has a clear cut understanding of how she would like her line up to look like. Unfortunately, it does suppress the creativity of the designer. How I learned to deal with this fact is, when it comes to weddings, I am there to help the bride bring her vision to life, not to tell her what I think. Besides, this day only comes once, so let the client have their way.

2. Uniformity – The trend nowadays seems to be, everyone on the line up, can have a design they are comfortable in. THIS CAN BE CHAOS! I was blessed to have three brides who supported the theory of uniformity. Getting 8 dresses done is quite a handful! Getting 8 dresses in different designs done is a volcano. And with different personalities to deal with, you may end up with more enemies than you first started. My advice for brides to be, Insist on uniformity. It will help avoid unnecessary stress.

Let us meet our first couple.

Waturi and Ernest

Waturi and Ernest were school mates of mine (university), whom I grew to love admire, and respect. I officially began getting to know this couple after I shared a class with Waturi.
The first time I met her, I thought to myself, “if ever we were to be given group work, I must get that girl in my group”. She looked too focused for me not to work with. She had such a beautiful and encouraging ambiance about her; warm, cheerful, positive; graceful; And I am not just saying it for the sake, but there are many witnesses to this statement.

My thought indeed came to pass, and we not only shared a class, but worked in the same group.

As for Ernest, I would occasionally bump into him in school. We officially started talking when I joined a bible study that he was leading, and it is at the same bible study that I got to know that they were dating. They were such an impactful couple that almost the whole school knew about them They were the model couple. Everyone knew that theirs was a match made in heaven; literally. It is for this reason I decided I couldn't pass an opportunity to be apart of making their wonderful union a success.

 I could say so much about them, but for purposes of this post, I’ll end the story here. As for our friendship, the rest is history. If you would like to read more on their story click here.


Waturi and I went through a stage of selecting designs for her maids, and she eventually settled on a simple sleeveless design inspired by a green polka dot dress she has. (I couldn't get a picture of the dress :( ) 
The final sketch for the maids



She loved the simplicity of the design, and the slit detail at the front of the dress. I thought it just matched her persona beautifully. What I simply did was play around with her theme colours and the design of the dress she gave me. She also wanted a flower detail on the dress (which isn't on the original design) but wasn't sure where exactly to put it. I opted to have the flower placed at the beginning of the slit.







The maid of honors'  dress was also a modification of a design she sent to me. I also played around with the design so as to have some sort of link to the bridesmaids dresses.





Maid of honor on the extreme left



                             

House of Valentcia wishes these two adorable lovebirds all the best in their marriage.



Ernest is an incredible writer as well. Follow his life changing articles on http://www.ernestwamboye.blogspot.com

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

The Kardashian Sister

The Kardashian sisters seem to get quite a lot of attention for, well, not always the right reasons. With every celebrity there will definitely be haters and lovers. The haters claim that they are just pretty faces and are famous because of daddy's money.
Whatever the people say, they are who they are, and they are richer than probably you will ever be. They are fashion icons the world over, no doubt. Especially the famous......... Kourtney Kardashian. That's right. I said Kourtney, not Kim. Kim, in my opinion, is over rated and her star is glowing dim. But that's just my opinion.

I think if I was a Kardashian , I'd be Kourtney. Her style we love to bits. Simple, graceful, elegant, classy, comfy and sassy.


 
Kourtney's style comes across as hippie/boho-vintage chic, of which we are absolutely in love with (very in line with my love for retro). Flowy fabrics, floral prints and patterns, paired well with flats or 6inches brings out the spank in her personality.




She knows how to perfectly blend modern cuts and bohemian prints to create a breathless ensemble.
And let's not forget the 80's style, oversize sun glasses :)



my favorite, the cat eye frames.
 
We just love how she pulls off these looks so effortlessly.

Drum roll for the ultimate look.................


The flared pants and shimmer vest. Priceless.
 
Love her or hate her, Kourtney Kardashian, is definitely a style icon to emulate.
And do not be surprised if my next collection is inspired by the boho chic look. ;)