When it comes to wedding fashion, the bride is always the focus and rightly so. But local designer Daniel Gonzalez is proving that bespoke gown-making goes a long way for the mother of the bride or groom, too. Buying readymade dresses can be challenging.
“It’s hard for a mother of a bride to find her dress because things aren’t made thinking about the normal woman,” Gonzalez says. “The dresses are made on mannequins that have perfect proportions and perfect alignment. But all humans grow and are shaped a little differently. You can be super fit, and your proportions are not right, and as you get older, that disparity gets worse.”
Making bespoke gowns is Gonzalez’s specialty, and why his business is thriving in the heart of Eastover.
“For me, it comes naturally,” he says. “I can look at someone’s body and say, ‘OK, this is going to work better for you.’ We're able to provide a product that is meant to look good on them, not just a pretty dress on a perfect form.”
Gonzalez designs around body shape, not someone’s age or stage in life. His next consideration is his client’s personality.
“Are they more exuberant and extroverted?’” Gonzalez says. “Maybe they want something a little bit more adventurous and fun. Or is the person more demure and quiet and more likely to go to a cleaner silhouette? Sometimes I get the mom who says, ‘Please dress me in something I've never worn before because I'm taking this as an opportunity to explore more about myself.’”
Nancy Downing, whose daughter Charlotte Downing Roberts was married on Figure Eight Island last year, is a former ballerina. That aesthetic factored into the dress’s look.
“She wanted something that felt beautiful, ethereal and soft,” Gonzalez says. “She wanted something whimsical, dainty and princess-like that felt very couture.”
He made her a pleated silk chiffon dress, gathered through the corset bodice. It was strappy and straight across the bustier with an A-line tea-length skirt with a satin trim at the bottom.
As for the color? Nancy’s daughter was getting married on the lawn at Figure Eight, with a backdrop of natural greens and ocean blues. Her flowers were pinks and oranges.
“I wanted her to feel sparkly, almost like a tropical flower would be,” Gonzalez says. “So we gave her this gorgeous, bright watermelon color in that soft chiffon, which felt sweet but also brilliant.”
For her daughter Charlotte, Gonzalez made a reception dress. She wanted something lighter and cooler, good for dancing, but also edgy with a surprise in the skirt, inspired by an Oscar de la Renta dress she’d seen with a similar vibe.
“We made her a little white bustier with this three-tiered mini skirt in this textured silk that looked like leather,” Gonzalez says. “It was a really soft white texture and edgy, without looking like plastic. We did this underskirt that had silk, black flowers underneath, so when she danced, the black flowers would pop up out from under and create this really fun optical illusion because it was going to be dark.”
Fashion designer Daniel Gonzalez gets most of his business by word of mouth. One mother of a bride tells another.
As clients enter his atelier, they are welcomed by a gallery of watercolor renderings—each one a bespoke gown he has brought to life.
Gonzalez also has a showroom full of ready-to-wear pieces so mothers and brides can mix and match elements of different dresses.
In the initial consultation, Gonzalez shows clients materials, how a silk might drape, or how a fabric catches light. Then they talk about colors. He factors in the time of the wedding, season, venue, invitation colors, flowers, bridesmaids’ dresses and more.
He creates the first sketch in black and white, revealing the dress’s silhouette and construction. Then, after exchanging feedback, he makes edits and ultimately presents clients with a color sketch that serves as a prototype.