When Gemma Sort Silvers first tried on her wedding dress from The Own Studio, she fell in love with its minimalist silhouette. “It was elegant and light, but still bridal,” she recalls of the silk drop-waist gown featuring a full skirt and train. As a stylist and the daughter of shoe designer Penelope Chilvers, she knew exactly what she wanted for her September 2023 wedding near her family home on Spain’s Costa Brava.
She had chosen The Own Studio dress early on, knowing she wanted a style she could wear again. “I thought it could be great in another color. I was already thinking about how not to make it a one-time dress,” she says.
Months after her wedding, Sort Silvers began searching for someone to dye the dress. However, she struggled to find many dyeing services available. Finally, she discovered Nicola Keelen Textiles, specializing in costume making for television, film, theater, and ballet. “I really pushed them. It’s a wedding dress, obviously very expensive, something people are attached to, and it can go wrong,” she says. Fortunately, she had some extra fabric from the dress, as she had it hemmed to remove the train, which she could use as a sample. “It was so good to be able to test the pink I initially chose because it was a bit brighter than I imagined,” she says. “We retested it in the color I had in mind, and the dye took really well, so we went for it. It came out unbelievably well.”
Her chosen color? Baby pink, inspired by the gown Gwyneth Paltrow wore to the 1999 Academy Awards. Sort Silvers was so thrilled with the final result that she eagerly awaited an opportunity to wear her transformed dress. The chance finally arrived at a friend’s wedding in Sicily. Many of the guests recognized the dress. “They did a double take and were like, ‘You dyed your wedding dress?’, and it got such good feedback.”
She wasn’t the only one wearing her wedding attire as a guest look. Her husband, Jake, also attended in his wedding suit.
Sort Silvers already has plans to dye the dress black for her 40th birthday. She’s also considering dyeing it red beforehand, if the dye takes. “I think I’ll be able to wear this pink for another few years, and then it’s definitely going to be black and midi,” she says. “Then it will be a forever piece.”
It’s a natural progression, but increasingly, brides are choosing wedding dresses with a second life in mind. Eco-conscious brands are now designing with this in mind. “The fact that it’s a design that can be worn again and again is really important to us and to the brides, so we mostly work with fabrics that can be dyed afterward and silhouettes that can be easily altered,” explain Rosey Williams and Jess Kay, co-founders of The Own Studio.
Since revealing her newly dyed wedding dress, Sort Silvers has received countless messages from friends asking for advice on how to give their wedding dresses a new life. “Make sure it’s a dress you can wear again, check if it can be altered, and if you’re dyeing it, test it on a fabric sample first!,” she advises.
