Shell's dress: a zip and buttons - The Dreamstress

You’ve seen the extraordinary buttons for Shell’s dress already, but I haven’t really told you about how it fastens. It closes with a zip under the false buttons. Yes, that’s right, I caved and did the ultimate wedding dress cliche.  It’s a cliche for a reason though: buttons by themselves would have a hard time holding such a fitted strapless bodice, and would be a pain to fasten, so the zip is necessary, but brides love that buttons up the back look. Since it isn’t a historical technique, a zip under buttons is not something I have ever had occasion to do before. It also isn’t something that you can currently find any instructions or guides on how to do on the internet. So I did a few trial runs, and guessed, and went for it. It came out very well: when the dress is on and the buttons are fastened its almost impossible to tell there is a zip under them.  This was very important to Shell.  Initially she was almost as anti zip-under-buttons …

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