Fashion designer knits her own wedding gown
A newlywed has revealed the painstaking process behind making her wedding dress over the nine months leading up to her big day.
Fashion designer Esther Andrews knitted her wedding dress every day while commuting to and from work.
The designer, who creates “slowly made knitwear for the modern bride” shared her story in a video posted to TikTok.
“I hand-knit my wedding dress on the New York subway for nine months and this was the journey,” Andrews said in the video.
Andrews explained the inspiration behind the gown was a “silly and fun” design of “space pirate” meets a “tomato patch” while panning over sketches of her dream dress.
She revealed she used more than 6.4km of mohair lace yarn to make the dress, with a single ruffle on the gown using 1.6km on its own.
“When it came time to sew it together, I was scared because I could only trust that it would fit - no time to go back,” Andrews said, while confirming she managed to finish the garment just before the wedding.
The below-the-knee dress featured a v-neck line, multiple ruffles, and a fitted bodice, all decorated with tiny tomatoes.
“I will always cherish this dress and the time that went into making it,” Andrew wrote, sharing images of her and her husband at their wedding on Instagram.
In a second video, Andrews showed off her hand-beaded stockings, designed to look “like a starry sky”, which took several weekends to make.
Viewers shared their support for the designer, calling it among “the most unique of our generation”.
“The most creative and iconic American wedding I’ve seen,” one user commented.
“I’m crying now, this is so sweet.”
One of Andrew’s biggest fans had to be her husband, who commented, “Just so you know I’m the HUSBAND!! And if you’re thinking I’m lucky, YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW THE HALF OF IT.”
Andrews also designed her husband’s suit for the wedding, taking inspiration from NASA’s Gemini space suits.
The 54-piece pattern suit took Andrews a week to make and was finished just five minutes before guests arrived.
Image: Esther Andrews / Instagram