Pamela Moore

Pamela Moore

By Katherine P. Cox

Photographs by Christopher David

With an extensive background in designing and creating costumes for the stage, Pamela Moore is a  natural for the ultimate theatrical event — a wedding.

For almost 30 years she has been making brides the stars of their own shows, whether it’s designing and making a gown from scratch, restyling a family dress or making adjustments to ready-to-wear gowns that float on the racks in her store.

A precocious girl who began sewing when she was 4 years old, she first discovered her love of costumes through her high school’s theater department where she designed and created costumes for school productions.

That work was a natural extension of another passion of hers, historical clothing, which she pursued with dedication under the tutelage of the Curator of Historical Costumes and Textiles at the Wadsworth Athaneum in Hartford, Conn., J. Herbert Callister. There she learned about the fragility of important garments and how even the most elaborate of clothing was constructed.

Moore went on to study art history and textiles at Boston University and the University of Vermont, and in the early 1980s moved to Brattleboro, where she opened a shop and began making clothes. As most of the requests for her work were custom-made bridal gowns, she soon focused her business on that, adding accessories and ready-made gowns. At the time, there weren’t many places for brides-to-be to go for wedding gowns, and Pamela Moore Bridals soon became the salon for those who wanted personalized service and a choice of stylish designs. Moore moved to Keene five years ago, first to the Colony Mill Marketplace and more recently to her new location, 141 Winchester St., on the corner of Winchester and Ralston Streets.

Some 300 bridal gowns billow from the racks in her store, as well as colorful special occasion dresses, formal gowns and mother-of- the-bride dresses. The ready-made dresses range in price from $200 to “the sky’s the limit,” Moore said.

What sets Pamela Moore Bridals apart, however, is the custom work Moore does, particularly restyling and reusing old gowns. While today a bride who chooses to repurpose a dress might be considered “going green,” Moore has been “recycling” gowns for years. Whether for sentimental or philosophical reasons, brides go to Moore with what she calls “family gowns”— gowns worn by mothers and grandmothers and passed down — to wear on their own wedding day. It might be resizing a gown, using part of the original dress such as the antique lace, or completely tearing it apart to recreate a new look. Regardless of the need, Moore works closely with the bride to design a dress that is unique and original to her and expresses her personality and lifestyle.

Custom projects are like a partnership, Moore said, and require a woman who can visualize “what will be,” she said. The designs evolve as Moore gets to know her client. “You have to really listen to what they’re saying …. and not saying.” Moore may ask the bride to bring in garments that she is most comfortable in, and discuss the image she wants to project.

While it sounds time-consuming, it doesn’t necessarily take much longer to create a custom dress than it does to order a new one. Last year she repurposed a gown for a bride in less than six months, which she admitted was a “truncated timeline.”

But it was a project that Moore clearly delighted in. The bride, a woman from Massachusetts with a strong conservation ethic, wanted a natural wedding. “For her dress, she wanted to use what already existed,” Moore said, “and had been offered a friend’s gown.” She heard about Moore from her mother, who lives in Keene, and when they met, “we just hit it off,” Moore said. “She realized I got it.”

The gown was silk shantung with a full skirt, long train and swags, and embellishments. “It was very beautiful,” Moore said.

First Moore had to determine if there was enough yardage in the original dress that could be reused. It helped that the bride was especially petite and did not want a full skirt or train. She wanted a natural look that reflected her lifestyle.

Moore took the original dress and flattened it out; essentially taking it all apart. Then with a design both Moore and the bride were pleased with, “I played with the fabric on her until we were both satisfied” with the look. “We used 85-90 percent of the original outer fabric.”

“The style we developed has a very closely fitted bodice with crosswise shirring and a slender, slightly flared floor length skirt,” Moore said. “The bodice was gathered on the sides by both machine and hand stitching and hand tacked into position throughout the entire length of the front and back panels. I created individually cartridge pleated pieces of silk satin for the bodice and skirt appliques with gently frayed edges that added a de-constructed feathery appearance.”

The result: A dress that fit the bride’s personal aesthetic, and more importantly, made her the undisputed star of her show.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTOPHER DAVID. Visit his websites Christopher David Photography and Christopher David Studios, or find him on Facebook.