Lifestyle Shopping&Fashion
Aisle altar hymn
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Once the big question has been popped, a wedding outfit needs thought out. Anna Burnside discovers some sweet alternatives to the big knitted toilet-roll holder look
WE SAW YOU Liz Eeuwes 27, bartender/rug designer, Glasgow My haircut was done by a guy back in Toronto, last time I went home for a visit.
A nyone who admires the Channel 4 series My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, and aspires to something similar, should look away now. At Melle Cloche, a dainty new wedding boutique on Byres Road, nothing is made from flammable nylon and nothing comes in the highlighter pen colour palette. In fact the floor area of the shop (below) would struggle to accommodate one of the gypsy bride’s five-stone meringue gowns.
My ring was from a place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn – a little store on Bedford Avenue. I’ve got my wedding and engagement rings on the other hand – you’d need to ask my husband where they were from! The jeans and shoes are from Primark – I find that place really useful for socks, T- shirts, that kind of thing.
The sweater was picked up in a vintage store in Toronto called Black Market. I like to mix vintage with charity shop stuff, or designer things if I can. My favourite shop in Glasgow is a place called Hayes in the southside that does discounted Vivienne Westwood Anglomania stuff. 28 THE LIST 3–17 Feb 2011
Instead, Melle Cloche, run by sisters Lisa and Jacqueline Bell, specialises in the more gorgeous, slinky and tasteful end of the wedding wear market. They leave the actual dresses (and the technical under- garments that keep them in place) to others, and concentrate on the kind of hand- beaded veils, maribou wraps, fairytale shoes and pearl-spotted pillbox hats that would have the most commitment-phobic singleton longingly waggling her ring finger.
The Glasgow-based Bells, both in their 30s, had always planned to start a business together. Organising their own weddings, they struggled to source the things they wanted in the city, resorted to the internet and found the whole experience unsatisfactory. Tada! Their niche was discovered. ‘We wanted to sell things people have seen
but can’t buy anywhere else in Scotland,’ says Lisa Bell. ‘The kind of unusual pieces we couldn’t find when we got married, ended up buying online and then had to send back. We want to be the kind of shop where you can come with your mum and your bridesmaids and everyone will find something they like.’
Mum might want to avert her eyes at some of the items the Bells have camouflaged among the shop’s demure, bird wallpaper. The underwear, says Lisa, ‘is definitely for the wedding night’. Swishing off the rack is Gilda & Pearl’s lush baby doll with matching black lace corset- backed knickers, as well as her famous How To Marry A Millionaire bow- fronted bra and pants. The shop’s biggest seller to date – it opened just before Christmas – is Ell & Cee’s silk ruffled knickers with the
legend, picked out in crystals: ‘The Mrs’. There is also a dreamy ecru version of a hot pink ostrich feather bolero (as worn by Britney Spears on her Circus tour). And if the happy couple want to channel a bit of wedding-fan Spears’ trailer trash aesthetic, they can always opt for matching pink and blue badges: Team Bride and Team Groom.
Melle Cloche, 121 Byres Road, Glasgow, www.mellecloche.co.uk
‘THE UNDERWEAR IS DEFINITELY FOR THE WEDDING NIGHT’