Two brides. Two suits. The hard part was never either suit.
It was the space between them.
Bruno has exactly that couple in the studio right now. A bride and a bride, both in suits, and the part that took the longest had nothing to do with either suit on its own.
It was how the two suits would sit next to each other in every photo of the day.
Matching makes you lose your originality. Ignoring each other looks like competing.
Bruno puts it plainly. With same sex couples, the two looks have to go together "without losing your individuality" and without looking like they are competing.
So the real question when both of you wear a suit is not which suit. It is what sits between the two suits.
One thing ties both looks together. Everything else stays yours.
The pair in the studio share a few small design choices, and each one points at the other suit. Bruno, on what they built: "we complemented the suits with little details around the actual design of the suits."
His own words for it are better. The two suits "call out each other's looks."
There is plenty to work with before you get anywhere near a matching set. The feel of the cloth. A colour in one suit picked up as a thin line in the other.
Couples name the fear out loud before the design starts. "we don't want to look like we're wearing a uniform" is the one we hear most.
Right beside that line sits the other half of the same worry. "I still want something that feels bridal, without a dress".
The jacket is where a men's suit off the shelf goes wrong
One of you wants the harder, more masculine shape. So you walk into a suit shop, buy the men's suit that comes closest, and hand it to a tailor.
Bruno has watched the end of that story many times. "They go to the shop and they'll wanna buy a men's suit, tailor it, and it looks absolutely wrong, like completely wrong."
Nothing was wrong with the tailor's work. The pattern under the jacket was drawn for a different body, and taking it in never fixes a shape that started somewhere else.
The women who walk in put the blame on the shop, never the tailor. "every suit shop is cut for men and nothing is cut for me".
A men's jacket cut for a woman's body changes the whole look
Bruno calls it the thing he has not seen anyone else do. "It's a men's jacket that's made based on a body that's a woman's body." The trousers stay women's trousers. Two patterns inside one suit, and no part of it fighting the body underneath.
There is no template under the jacket at all. The pattern starts on a blank page, drawn from your own body, so nothing pulls the suit back toward someone else's shape.
The parts that make the look land are small. I set the waistband a little higher, to catch the narrowest part of the body above the hip. In the photos that gives a longer leg.
Hair and makeup belong to the same picture
Katriona Allen does the hair and makeup on these weddings. She carries the same question into her chair.
"the hair and makeup doesn't compete with the dresses, with the suits. It all looks cohesive."
At a wedding a few weeks back she had both brides getting ready in the same room. One wore her hair half up, half down. The other ended in a bun, and the two hairstyles answered each other the way the suits do.
Two looks drawn in the same room always land better
The worry you arrive with is a trade. One of you takes what the men's shelf gives her, and the pair of you either match too hard or clash.
That trade is not on the table. The jacket gets cut from a men's pattern made for her body, and both looks get drawn in the same room at the same time, as equals.
On the day it comes down to this. One less thing on the list, two looks you already know work together, and photos where the two of you look like one couple instead of two guesses.
The space between the two suits is the part that gets designed. Get that space right and each of you still gets to be completely yourself inside your own suit.
Frequently asked questions
How do two brides in suits dress as a couple without matching?
Pick one thing the two suits share, then let everything else be different. A colour family, the feel of the cloth, or one small detail repeated on both. Matched head to toe looks like a set, and a set stops looking like a couple.
Can I get a men's style suit cut for a woman's body?
Yes. The jacket is built from a men's pattern made to your own size, with women's trousers underneath. Buying a men's suit off the shelf and altering it is the version that goes wrong, because the pattern was drawn for a different body.
What do the two suits have to answer to?
The same things any wedding outfit answers. The place, the colours running through the wedding, the feel of the day, and what the other half of the couple is wearing. Those four settle the colour and the cloth long before the small choices get made.
Can one of us wear a suit while the other wears a dress?
Often that is the plan, and the rule does not change. The suit and the dress still have to answer each other through colour, cloth and the small details. Both looks get designed in the same room.
Do hair and makeup need to match as well?
They need to work with the suits, not copy each other. Two brides getting ready together often land on different shapes that sit well side by side, like one hairstyle half up and the other pulled back.
The guide to finding a tailor who gets it covers what to ask before you book anywhere. The tuxedo or suit piece helps when one of you is deciding between the two.
When the two of you are ready, book a style consultation. Both looks get designed together, in the same room, by the people who cut both.
Dress for who you are becoming.
x Angela Falcone
House of Falcone