The Making of the ROCOCO Collection: The 'MEIER' Gown

One Dress At A Time: The Meier

The road to designing is neither an exact path nor an easy one. There are many obstacles along the way that can make or break the design of a gown. Details that can land you a dress in a magazine, store window or bride, or not.

The Rococo Collection started with the idea of designing architecture into a dress. Jorge Manuel feels that architecture exists in everything since everything in life is designed. This collection had been long time coming as sketches and ideas had steadily been building up 6 months prior to its conception. "There were times where I would be half asleep and I'd bolt out of bed shuffling around in the darkness of my room for a pen, pencil...anything that would write so that I could set the idea in my head unto a piece of paper, corner of a book, or even a piece of mail, "recalls the designer. Ideas spur from anywhere and from anything. The term being creative is simply a person's ability to be opened to these ideas no matter how or where they come from. When one is able to absorb and process their surroundings and translate them from your mind into abstract form then creativity is rooted and established.

This particular dress was born from the ideas of an Architect, Richard Meier, who is known for using white predominantly throughout his designed work. Designing this gown was as different to Jorge Manuel as Richard Meier had been with his "white" inspired work in a world where concrete, grays and blacks dominated the architectural spectrum. " I had never designed a gown with so much coverage and much less covered in lace. This would be a new challenge for me and I was confident that it would turn out beautifully," explains the designer; "the first step was to sketch what I had in mind. I did a couple of renderings and started to form a list of words to describe what emotions I wanted to convey in this gown."

Words like "romantic, timeless, feminine, soft," and "powerful" made the top of the list. Jorge Manuel understands how heavily saturated the market is with gowns made of lace. So how would he put different into what is already "not so different," was truly a big concern for the designer. It would take weeks before the perfect lace would make the cut. Out of endless options, Jorge Manuel settle on his two top favorites. One would have gorgeous repetitive circular details that were smaller and fit the bill with his list of words, but the other choice had giant circles embroidered in organza, cut crystals and seed beads seem to draw his eye more. "I saw it finished in my head before I had even unrolled the fabric. Once I saw the lace on the table, I knew it would make my list of words a reality in fabric form," recalls Jorge Manuel.

Finding the perfect lace sent Jorge Manuel into a whirlwind of fantastic ideas and his sketch began to change from one design to another. The gown started to shape itself and by pairing the gorgeous circular lace with the "white" silk shantung and polka dot sequence lace for the bodice as backing, the MEIER gown took life. The designer knew right away that it would become the crown jewel of the collection. Sewing pieces of lace together in itself is an art form. The process of dress making is as much tedious as it is beautiful. All together a dress can take months to make depending on the style, fabric and detail of the gown.  It would take a team of three specialized seamstresses to assess and make the beautiful hand-made Meier dress. Specifically:

The MEIER took 5 sketches, 1 final sketch, 1 pattern maker, 3 talented seamstresses, 3 weeks to make, 1 muslin, 10 yards of light weight Silk-Shantung, 2 yards of Lace, 7 hours of re-beading, and 36 Satin covered buttons to confect and bring to life.

The Rococo Collection is a collection based on design inspiration. It is project that changed constantly and nothing was as it should be until the end result. It was a journey of self discovery and adventure.

We are so proud to introduce to you THE MEIER from Jorge Manuel's ROCOCO COLLECTION 2012. For more information on the gown and other gowns, you can visit designer's website (jorgemanuelweddings.com). 'Til next time... when we feature another dress from the collection through the designer's perspective.