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Article Archives: 2006 Edition / Feature 3
Sentiments & Styles
Sandra Ashford’s talent makes special occasions even more special
Sandra Ashford, owner of the Ashford Collection, restyles and refurbishes wedding dresses and heirloom christening gowns.It’s a dilemma: The happy bride-to-be has dreamed since girlhood of walking down the aisle in Grandmother’s satin wedding dress. When it’s time to try it on, though, either the style or the fit doesn’t match her own. Her dream threatens to dissolve in tears.
Enter Sandra Ashford of The Ashford Collection.
“I take the design the bride may want and restyle her mother’s or grandmother’s dress to suit her,” she says.
A long-sleeve, bouffant-style gown can be remade sleeveless and straight and even be resized. One memorable makeover was that of a wedding gown passed down from an aunt to her niece and eventually worn by the niece’s two daughters.
“The first daughter’s taste was very simple and elegant, so we tailored it to suit her. Then her sister wanted to wear the dress, and she pictured it with more elaborate detail.”
Such makeovers typically cost from $1,000 to $3,500, but the price is usually less daunting than the prospect of having a family treasure literally taken apart at the seams. Fortunately, Ashford is as skilled in reassurance as in restoration and restyling. “I can envision the result, and I try to convey that to the clients,” she says.
Another part of her business is reworking heirloom christening gowns much the same way she does wedding gowns, then embroidering the name and baptism date of each wearer into it. One such garment had already had 21 wearers when she first embroidered it and has had eight more since then.
One of the joys of Ashford’s work is sharing in the stories. Some of the finest dresses she has worked on came from Europe, bought in France or Belgium by GIs dreaming of their sweethearts back home. Every new generation that wears such an heirloom provides one more happy ending, she says: “It’s so gratifying to see new life in these priceless old garments.”
Story by Errol Castens
Photo by Wes Aldridge
© Copyright 2007 Journal Communications Inc.
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