Connie gave me her first wedding dress, a simple, elegant, cotton sheer gown. Fabric covered buttons adorned the neck and center front surrounded by an eyelet lace inset. Matching lace and covered button also completed long cuffs at the wrist.
Connie was married in the 1970s and the dress represents well flower child innocence. When she came to me, she had just lost her second husband to unexpected death. Her eyes brim with tears as she hands the dress over to me. She tells me as soon as she cleans out her bedroom closet, she’ll have another one because she has no need of it anymore. Grief leaks from her eyes as she says these words. She is utterly lost and doesn’t know what to do.
A wedding dress is always a beginning point. The bride is like the tarot’s fool who sets out on an unknown journey, not really knowing what she is getting herself into. One never knows what will come of a marriage or a life. There is so much expectation, anticipation, hope, blissful ignorance, and dreams donned when one puts on a wedding dress. When Connie looks back over her life, since her weddings, she thinks, “I never knew…… my life would turn out this way”. Many of us can say the same. Connie will rebuild herself, women always do. She will put herself back together and maybe she will even have another beginning point, another dress to mark in time a new life, new opportunity, new hope.
From Connie’s wedding dress, I made a holiday stocking featuring the center front covered buttons and eyelet lace panel. The original neckline is maintained, buttoned and filled with fabric flowers. An origami flower fits into the neck and is studded with beads and surrounded with rolled greens. Crinoline softens the dark velvet green ribbon accenting the top of the stocking. Roses, once the dress ties, are wrapped tightly in flower form. Beading adorns the toe, arch, and heel. Surprisingly, cream or the candlelight color of the dress had trouble standing on its own. It really needed an additional color to give the stocking a slight lift, hence the green choice.
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