My dream marriage came at the age of 46 which is not exactly too late nowadays, but still it leaves you the time to overthink, even before the first wedding bells are heard, about every detail of the wedding day. As a tireless reader of Vogue Weddings I had often caught myself in rapture before brides in Vivienne Westwood’s gowns. This was the exact reason why after the proposal I could not allow myself to indulge in the Vivienne Westwood dream. Too predictable, I told myself. I had been attentively studying all the latest wedding fashion shows of the season in order to find my perfect bridal gown, but nothing made me really get into the precise wedding feeling I was looking for. I was beginning to lose heart until the evening I was distractedly watching a movie with my family and thought in a brand-new way of these radiant Vivienne Westwood brides who had made me dream for at least a decade since the day I started thinking of the pleasure of getting married.
My fingers were already tapping the Vivienne Westwood web address on my phone and I had fallen into my own place. There it was, my first wedding gown crush: the 1920s-vibe-inspired gown from the 2022 bridal couture collection, a cascade of lace. Nothing could have been more elegant or more poetic in the sense I was imagining my walk down the aisle at the time (I was actually thinking of a solemn down-the-garden-path-to-the-flowery-altar walk). Then I showed the nicest picture of another gown to my mother. I must confess, the element that carried me away in the image was the hat. A white top hat with a silk flower and a veil all together. It was the Nova Cora Lace from the same 2022 couture collection, an enchantment: elegant but bold, romantic but sexy. According to my mother, the dress couldn’t have been more appropriate.
I immediately booked an appointment at the Vivienne Westwood Show Room in New York. In Italy, it was 10 pm, in New York, people at Vivienne Westwood were still working, and they responded immediately, asking about the date and the venue of the wedding. When they learned it was to be in the South of Italy, they informed me that a bridal showroom was just about to open in the Fall at the Vivienne Westwood flagship store in Milan. Notwithstanding my desire to fly at once to New York, I found the advice sound. As I live between Provence and the South of Italy, Milan is very easy to reach while driving between my two places. The person in New York gave me a phone number. I called the day after. It was the end of July. I had an appointment for the end of September at 25 Corso Venezia and all the time in between to dream of my Vivienne Westwood bridal gown.