Inside MH Mena Couture Process
Written by Edward Marriott
22nd February 2022
At MH Mena, our duty is always to make you feel your most beautiful and empowered, taking and adapting your dreams, and turning them into bespoke, unique designs that truly fulfil your fantasies. We simply cannot replicate the lofty ambitions of our clients without the hours of detailed, collaborative and creative dressmaking.
That’s why the couture process, the craftsmanship and the care it inspires sits at the core of who we are.
The drape of a piece of fabric. The gradient of colours. The quality of the materials. All of these details flow through the entire couture process, resulting in a perfectly sculpted and form-fitting garment.
The beauty of our couture process is the unlimited scope and potential that goes into each piece we make, since we constantly evolve through our clients’ concepts and briefs. This pushes us to combine the high standard of traditional couture dressmaking with our clients’ wildest dreams and the demands of contemporary fashion.
Our clients are our family, and we are here to create memories for them that will last a lifetime. Our designs are unforgettable, and truly and only yours.
Let us take you inside the Atelier 1 couture process, our premium service, where we’ll explain how we’ll create your dream garment.
First meetings.
Our first consultation with you gives us the opportunity to understand your intimate wishes and desires for your design and the occasion.
You will meet with our creative director Mena Hamoodi in London, or, under special requests, Mena will come to meet you, or you can have your consultation virtually. You can bring colours, photos, literature, art, music and designs that inspire you. You’ll be shown the latest images for shapes and silhouettes, colours, sketches, fabrics and a variety of embroideries.
We can start as big or as small as you like. Whether you have a specific idea in mind, or your tastes and ideas span a wide spectrum of influences. We listen and collaborate with you, honing in on your tastes until we’ve discovered the feeling you want to capture and experience with an MH Mena design.
This will also give us the opportunity to understand how you want to collaborate. You can have hands-on involvement, selecting and deciding even the smallest details of your garment. Alternatively, you can leave the entire process to us, and we will present you with regular updates until you are enamoured with the finished article.
MH Mena couture gowns are only made by using your personal measurements, which can be taken at your first consultation, or you can send them to us in advance. At the end of your consultation, once we have collected and understood your vision, Mena and her team of designers will produce a sketch personally for you.
From there, Mena and the ateliers will create a final design and book a second appointment. During this second meeting, you will provide feedback and approve the design; we will make any changes needed before we start constructing your bespoke piece.
Creation.
Once the final design has been agreed upon, the creation process begins. We start with a bespoke mannequin that will embody your figure. Your piece will be crafted and altered solely on this made-to-measure figure, so it is perfectly sculpted for your silhouette.
We select the finest fabrics and unique patterns that breathe life into your design. We then create a toile for the design and ensure we only use the correct amount of materials for the final product, so we do not produce any excess waste.
The hand-crafted garment can take from 50 – 1000 hours to create. Our team use their expertise and experience, sewing and stitching every thread and working tirelessly to create the final garment. We want even the minutia of details you provide us to be represented in the piece we create for you.
Fittings and your future with MH Mena.
Once the garment is completed, we invite you to try on your one-of-a-kind MH Mena design for a final fitting. At the fitting, the seamstresses will make any necessary changes and adaptations, so you are left with a finished piece that wholly fulfils the fantasy you told us about in our first consultation.
We will gift you the mannequin and sketches we created throughout the couture process, personally package your dress, and say our goodbyes. However, our collaboration with you doesn’t end once you step out of our doors.
We look for partners to design for and collaborate with for a lifetime. Furthermore, we also offer Atelier 2 and Atelier 3, where you can select one of MH Mena’s archived designs. We’ll be sharing more information about our Atelier 2 and 3 soon.
We love to keep in touch with you and continue to be inspired by your creativity and ideas. Through this ongoing partnership, we understand your ambitions, your philosophy on beauty and what it takes to make you feel your most empowered in couture.
We would love to start this partnership with you today. If you’d like to find out more about our couture process or book your first consultation, we’d be delighted to meet you.
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