Milwaukee FASHION

Tanya Cawthorne BLOG (FEBRUARY&nbsp 26, 2008) Wedding dress with oriental flavour The vast majority of Israeli girls rent their wedding dresses and pay an absolutely exorbitant amount of money for the privilege. Dresses here, with very few exceptions, also seem to be designed for your average floozie, and personally, not being a prude or anything, I feel a little uncomfortable about the idea of standing under the chuppah wearing my underwear.

Now, I don’t really have any strong feelings either way about renting or buying - but I’ll be damned if I am going to pay upwards of 6000 shekels (about $A2000) for something that makes me look like I should be cruising up and down Kings Cross.

Lucky for me, I have a fabulous mother who works in the fashion business, and through a couple of her close contacts, I have been able to organise a wonderful dress (although it is still very much a work in progress!) The fabrics silk dupioni and hand-embroidered silk netting are coming all the way from Suzhou in China from a dear friend of my mother’s as an incredibly generous wedding gift. In fact, the dress fabric has just arrived from China.

It was sent via international courier and arrived in less than three days. It is truly exquisite and I can’t wait for the dress to start taking shape. I will take it to a small moshav near Netanya where my dress will be designed and made by a wonderfully talented Israeli designer, Keren Naftali. I will be meeting with her soon to give her the material and take new measurements so she can get going with everything.