Crepe, duchesse satin, silk tulle and corded lace. Four cloths that behave in four different ways, all of them on the rail today.
Appointment only · Cliffe High Street, Lewes
Eighty gowns, and the time to try them
We are one room above a bookshop, with around eighty gowns from six independent designers and a workroom at the back. One bride is in the room at a time, for ninety minutes, and the rail is pulled before you arrive.
Ninety minutes
Sizes 6 to 28
£950 to £2,800
The rail
Six houses, and what they cost
Six independent designers, chosen because they cut differently from one another. The price is the gown as it arrives, before alterations. Nothing here is sold online, and nothing is marked up for the room it is tried on in.
Marin Ashe
Bias-cut crepe and heavy silk. No lace, no petticoat, nothing that needs scaffolding.
Samples 10–20
£1,150 – £1,850
Odette Laval
French corded lace, long sleeves and low backs, cut in Lille and finished by hand.
Samples 10–18
£1,600 – £2,400
Hollis & Bell
Separates. Bodies, skirts and overskirts that mix, so the ceremony and the evening differ.
Samples 12–26
£950 – £1,500
Saoirse Quinn
Draped on the stand before it is cut. One fitting more than everyone else, and it shows.
Samples 10–22
£1,900 – £2,800
Vera Linden
Clean columns in weighty duchesse satin. Pockets in every skirt as standard.
Samples 12–24
£1,250 – £1,900
Juno Rae
High necks, covered arms and closed backs, for brides who want less skin and more line.
Samples 14–26
£1,100 – £1,700
Every gown can be ordered from a size 6 to a size 28. Samples are what hangs on the rail today — if one will not do up, we clip it and you still see the shape.
What happens after you choose
Eighty gowns. Six houses. One bride in the room.
No shared fitting floor, no one waiting for the mirror, no sales floor manager counting heads. While you are here, the shop is yours and the stairs are closed.
How it works
What ninety minutes actually looks like
Long enough to try eight or ten gowns properly, short enough that nobody is exhausted by the end. Most brides find the one in their second hour across two visits, and that is normal.
What to bring
Your shoes, or heels at the height you expect to wear.
A nude strapless bra, if you wear one.
Hair roughly as you plan to have it on the day.
Up to three guests — the room seats four, and that is the honest limit.
The screenshots. All of them. They tell us more than a description does.
01
Tell us the date
Send the wedding date and a rough budget through the form. We come back with times. The diary is small because only one appointment runs at once.
02
We set the rail
Before you arrive we pull eight to ten gowns in your sample size and in the shapes you have described. You are not flicking through eighty hangers alone.
03
Ninety minutes in the room
You and up to three guests. We fetch, clip and pin, and we tell you what we think when you ask us. There is no second bride waiting behind the curtain.
04
Two or three fittings
Ordered or bought from the rail, the gown is altered at the back of the same room. Hems, bustles, straps and cups, measured on you and not posted away.
05
Collection
You collect the week of the wedding, pressed and bagged, with the bustle shown to whoever will be tying it on the day.
In the room
Fabric first, then the fuss
Most brides arrive with a silhouette in mind and leave with a cloth in mind. What a gown is made of decides how it moves down an aisle, how warm it is in July, and how much the workroom can change.
6–28
The sizes we stock, not the sizes we can order
Samples on the rail run from a 10 to a 26 depending on the house. Every gown here is cut to order from a 6 to a 28, and no size carries a surcharge.
Altered at the back of the room
Hems, bustles, straps and cups are done in our own workroom, on you, over two or three fittings. Nothing is sent away and nothing is guessed from a measurement sheet.
Alterations and timingsOne room, one bride, ninety minutes
Send the date and we will find you a time. If you are not sure when to start looking, ask us that too — the answer is usually earlier than you think.