I was nominated for the wedding industry awards 2026 in two categories. And I won for my region in one of them! And yes, I made and wore bespoke dresses to both ceremonies, see below for more pictures!
Photo by Matt Rock
Alterations seamstress/tailor – regional finalist South East 2026
This category is for any bridal alterations specialist seamstress or a wedding attire tailor. Nominations are taken for those business who personally interact with the client, undertaking professional sewing and fitting. I was nominated for this category and became a regional finalist.
Independent Dressmaker/Designer – Winner South East 206
This category is for those who design their own gowns and manufacture in house, solo or with a team. From drafting the patterns to and making and fitting the gowns. They should offer face to face fittings and oversee the whole client journey from first point of contact, to final fitting and collection of the finished garment. I was nominated, a finalist and regional winner in this category.
Nominations for two categories
I was delighted when one lovely client was kind enough to nominate me for the TWIA awards 2026 as her bridal dressmaker. Nicola, for whom I had made a beautiful blue wedding dress with sequins, started this whole journey for me with a surprise nomination. However, that was only the beginning as the process involves quite a bit of work from me and the support of my clients too. I also entered the other category for which I qualify, as a bridal alteration seamstress.
I had to answer a long list of questions about my business for each category. Then I submitted photos and videos of my work and to introduce myself and my business to the judges.
Support from my clients
The first hurdle is becoming a regional finalist. This means collecting feedback from as many clients as possible for who I provided service in the last twelve months. They each gave me a score out of 10 for various questions related to my work, including areas like my ability to understand their ideas, quality of sewing work, communication and web presence. They were also invited to share positive feedback and constructive criticism in their own words.
What is rather wonderful is that after the awards finished all this was made available to me to see. I was extremely gratified to find my scores for 4 of the 7 questions as a bridal designer were perfect 10’s for everyone who answered, and must have been 9 or 10 from everyone for the remaining three!
Lovely words left by my brides:
“Felicity is nothing short of a visionary, producing textile creations that fulfil the unique dreams of her customers. Her pieces are beautifully made and unlike anything else on the market.” – Eleanor Tremeer
“Felicity made my dream dress, and I didn’t even know exactly what I wanted. From initial discussion and photos she sourced the perfect statement fabric and designed and made the perfect fit dress and outfit. She took my ideas and brought them to life – and made something perfectly me!” – Sarah Smith
” Felicity was an absolute dream to work with. She made me feel so confident in her work and how my dress would turn out after the alterations. As a queer couple, she made us both feel seen and heard and we were even wanting to get her to make my partners suit because of how welcoming, inclusive and kind she was throughout. I will 100% choose to work with her again for any and all alterations I could need.”
Becoming a Regional finalist
I was very excited to discover I had got through the first round in both categories and had become a regional finalist. I was fortunate enough to meet one of the judges at the national award ceremony who shared with us more of the behind the scenes process in choosing the finalists and winners. It is very thorough! Even becoming a regional finalist is no mean-feat. In fact only about 50% of nominees reach this stage. The survey scores are averaged for each category across the whole country and then only the top half are named finalists! This does mean that even if you the only nominee in your region there is no guarantee you will become a finalist. I was very pleased to learn this as it made me feel I really deserved my place at the award ceremony for both categories.
Winning the award – the final result!
I was more than nervous on awards night for the South East, November 2025. It was a thrill to hear my name read out and to discover I was the winner in the ‘Independent Dressmaker/Designer’ category. I also attended the national awards night, along with the other regional winners in my category. Though I did not take home any further awards, it was very gratifying to win recognition for my work at the regional level.
Photo by Matt Rock
Love from my fellow sewists.
One of the best things about TWIA was getting to meet my fellow nominees and finalists at the awards nights. Particularly at the national finals, at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool when there was true excitement at seeking out my fellow regional winners in both categories. I don’t know what the collective term for dressmakers or seamstresses might be, but I’m taking suggestions!
Here I am outside the Adelphi hotel for the National TWIA Awards night, Liverpool January 21st 2026. And with my fellow attending national finalists for the Independent Dressmaker award. Jenny of My Little Wedding Shop on the left, then Caroline Chamberlain (who got the highly commended award) and myself.
We had plenty to chat about, not least our outfits which we had all made ourselves of course! Then there was a larger group photo with the other sewists who were finalists for the seamstress category.
Official photos by Colin Lavery and Matt Rock
Red Carpet Dresses
The dress code for both award events was ‘Red Carpet Glam’ – so we dressmakers definitely felt the need to lead the pack. I made a new dress for the regional finals in just 48 hours! I work best to tight deadlines and always cut it fine with my own outfits after prioritising the work for my brides. The silk fabrics came from Bennett Silks, pale gold silk crepe back satin and berry coloured crinkle silk chiffon. I designed a short dress with Grecian-style details, layering the sheer chiffon over the pale gold satin so it would glint through. I added a bolero made from fuchsia pink duchess silk satin, cut with statement over-size sleeve heads.
The fabrics I started with, pattern drafting, cutting out and preparing to sew.
After making the base layer from subtle gold silk satin-back crepe I ruched and pinned and draped the chiffon layer over the top. I wanted to allow the fabric to hang naturally and fold organically, with hidden tiny stitches to hold the placement.
Then I played with different placements for the velvet ribbon. I liked 3 & 4, shown here the best, but I put it to the vote on my instagram stories and went with the collective opinion. Number 3 was the winner with 49 votes from my followers, with only 15 votes for the next most popular. That was my instinctive choice anyway, it has the most Grecian flavour! Still, it was lovely to have the approval of my fans!
The next stages were fixing down the chosen ribbon placement over the carefully ruched and steamed chiffon, then tidying up the back fabric drapes and folding them into the zip. The criss-cross strap pattern at the back created itself as I played with the materials on the stand, the way I love to design the best.
Silk duchess satin bolero
Once I knew the main dress was finished and wearable – remember my very tight deadline – I allowed myself a few hours to make the bolero. I make a toile first, which is a practice run in cheap fabric. Once I was happy with that I cut the beautiful berry coloured silk duchess satin and sewed the statement sleeves in.
National Awards Dress in Green Glitter
For the National awards night I wore a dress I’d made previously, for the Muddy Stiletto Awards in 2021. But this time, instead of wearing it ‘sewn shut’ as I had for the first occasion, I actually, and finally finished the fastening properly!
RuPaul Moonlight fabric
The fabric I used to make this dress is perfect for a red carpet dress. It is called ‘moonlight’ fabric and though it looks spectacular it is cheap as chips! I bought it from an online seller, it is not hard to find though when I first tried to find it, without knowing what it was called it took a good deal of tracking down. I saw RuPaul wearing a green glitter dress on Drag Race I fell in love with the fabric and knew I had to find it. I took screenshots and reached out via my favourite seamstress forum (the facebook group ‘the costume networking group‘) to see if anyone knew exactly what it was. I could see it had a very distinctive texture, a fine glitter, not sequins and almost cellular surface, suggesting it might be knitted or stretch.
Below, the screenshots I had as inspiration, and the fabric I finally managed to track down and buy.
The base layer of the dress was a simple fitted stretch lining. Here I am creating it on the stand, adding darts for shaping. I sewed boning to this layer as well. Once this was complete I draped the moonlight fabric over the top, allowing the folds and drape to form the dress. Then I hand sewed down all the pleats into my dress. The asymmetric neckline naturally lent itself to a one sleeve shape, which I allowed to hang long from the side of the dress, becoming almost like a wing with an open slit along my arm. This was another nod to Grecian styling – it seems Grecian is a theme for my award dresses!
Corset foundations
I had previously had a bespoke corset made for me by my wonderful colleague Beth Moody, of Moody Corsetry. While the corset is a statement piece in itself and well worth being seen, on this occasion I used it as a foundation layer to give my figure a really good shape underneath the draped green dress. I was not using it for tight-lacing this time, so a 3″ waist line reduction was comfortable for the hours of evening wear.
The final finished dress… off I go to meet my friends and colleagues at the TWIA 2026 national awards night.
This win was my fifth time being nominated and third time taking home a prize in an industry award for being a wedding dressmaker. It is very gratifying to be recognised in this way.
