When Beyoncé renewed her vows to Jay Z in 2018, she chose to wear an off-the-shoulder, figure-hugging (natch) column dress by Israeli wedding dress designer Galia Lahav.
The dress, which she revealed in an Instagram video posted on January 1 marking her best moments of 2018, was from the Galia Lahav ‘Victorian Affinity’ collection, which is inspired by Queen Victoria’s wedding dress, and featured sheer blouson sleeves and Swarovski crystal and pearl embellishments.
Costing in the region of £12,000, the dress was a fairly frugal choice for Queen Bey, however the overt drama and sexiness of the design meant it felt very on-brand Beyoncé.
In fact, romance and drama are Galia Lahav’s speciality. The world-renowned designer has over 30 years’ experience creating custom wedding dresses for high profile celebrities and the international jet-set. She has stores in the USA, Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany and Russia and in London is stocked in Browns Bride.
But what goes into making a custom wedding gown like that of Queen Bey’s?
Each Galia Lahav wedding dress is made in their atelier in Tel Aviv, where the seamstresses will spend an average of 100 hours working on each gown.
“Behind every collection, hours of creating are held in our atelier where we prefect and finalise each and every detail to bring our new and exciting creations to life,” Galia Lahav tells the Standard.
To find out more about the process, we spoke to Sharon Sever, Head Designer at Ghalia Lahav, whose responsibility it is to bring Galia Lahav’s visions to life.
“I think when you are in this business you have to realise that you are so fortunate to make an amazing thing happen for someone on their happiest day of their lives! You have to embrace that and appreciate what it means, I get a reminder every now and again from brides about why I am in this business,” says Sever. “If you do it you have to love it, love weddings and brides!”
Read on for a step-by-step of how a Galia Lahav gown is made…
It all starts with a sketch
Sever completes anywhere between one and five sketches for each dress, each of which takes anywhere from 30 minutes to three days to complete, depending on the complexity of the design.
“Every collection has a muse in my head. This is reflected in the sketches. It is more of a spirit that I feel," he tells the Standard.
Making the pattern
The sketch is then communicated and explained to the pattern makers to enable them to draw and cut the dress pattern as Sever imagined it.
“After the sketch is done I have to analyse it with our head of the atelier and understand the way the garment is meant to be constructed,” explains Sever. “Unless I have some specific way of cutting or a certain structure I am looking for there are a lot of things to be taken into consideration. Colour, the fabric itself, pattern, if it’s embroidered, if it is too transparent, wide, narrow.
“Taking an idea and putting it on paper first and then converting it into two dimensional analysis is speciality and a craft. Our pattern makers are very skilled at doing this. They take a crazy idea and work out how to make it happen.”
Cutting the fabric
"We source our fabrics from all over the world - France, Italy, Spain, UK, Japan, and each dress will use anything from 5 to 150 metres of material. The most commonly used fabrics are silk, tulle and lace - most of the lace on the dresses is embroidered tulle. Both Galia and myself like to layer fabrics and use a lot of transparency. We use a lot of sheer materials such as sheer tulle and spanx to create a vaporous look.
"Every dress is made in our studio in Tel Aviv and we also store all our fabrics and trims here."
Sewing the Dress
"Once all the elements that compose the dress are ready, they are sent to our seamstresses along with the original sketch to be sewed.
"Up to five seamstresses will work on the same dress, some of which can take up to a month to complete. We have different stages of cutting, hand sewing etc. Hand work (sewing) which is part of the sewing of the dress can take up to one week for one dress. Embroidery on the dresses can take months and months.
"At Galia Lahav, we are known for intricacy and the way our dresses fit, so all our seamstresses are highly qualified. They all train for at least three years before they join us."
Details and Embroidery
"All the details and embroideries for each dress are handmade and tailored by our lovely seamstresses. They transform what can be a simple dress into an exceptional dream dress.
"The main construction is done by machine so that it’s solid, but all the finishings, sequins and embroidery are sewn by hand. Sampling lace and hemming is also done by hand."
Fittings and Quality Control
The dress will be placed on a mannequin to enable Sharon to sew the last features of the gown such as draping, uneven cutting, etc. and controlling every detail. The sewing team will then perform a quality control on the gown, before shipping it to Browns Bride.
"If you buy a dress in a good store such as Browns, the more experience the store has the less you will be concerned about and the less fittings you can have. If you come to the store in Tel Aviv we are actually here and this is our home base so we like to do fittings. At trunk shows sometimes I attend, or Galia, attends and we love to see our brides in the fittings!
"If an order comes in from Browns, a client will usually have two-three fittings at the store. If someone has ordered a custom Galia Lahav gown, they will likely have more than three fittings but is up to the bride. The bride decides how many fitting there will be depending on the dress.
"We have special custom made mannequins that are made in Italy for all different shape brides."
Galia Lahav dresses range from £8,450 – £12,650, and Gala by Galia Lahav dresses range from £5,100 – £8,050. Galia Lahav is available to purchase in London at Browns Bride.
Browns Bride are hosting their next Trunk Show on the 1st, 2nd& 3rd of August 2019. On these days you will be able to try on the Spring Summer 2020 collections. For bookings contact Browns Bride on 02070341400 or enquiries@brownsbride.com
