“It’s beautiful,” says bride-to-be Haifa Snobar standing in front of her reflection at the Oscar de la Renta studio. “I’m speechless.” The 26-year-old PR executive has just flown in with her mother Naheel, her now sister-in-law, Basma Abu Ghazaleh, and friend Hala Abu Eid Al Fahim
from Saudi Arabia, where she works for the Middle Eastern division of
the American fashion house, for a final fitting with creative director Peter Copping. She had an audience of 450 this past weekend when she wed her beau, Mohammed Abu Ghazaleh, in northern France.
The dress, a snow-white princess style featuring hand-cut floral
petals with a star effect made from taffeta and organza, took 30 people
more than 1,500 hours to complete. “I want the train to be like this the
whole time, I need a flutterer!” she says jokingly, gliding across the
floor as several design assistants follow along to arrange the dream
dress behind her. “My little princess!” exclaims Basma, pulling out her
cellphone to take the first snaps.
“I think it’s important for brides to feel comfortable in their
dress,” says Copping, looking on. “So we went for something delicate and
light.” Given that the ceremony is set to take place at the Château de
Voisins, a turn-of-the-century mansion just outside of Paris, there was a
subtle sense of grandeur to the design, or as Copping put it, “drama
with enough room for movement.” It’s then that the designer focuses in
on the neckline. “Maybe just a couple of flowers,” he says, noting that
the sheer neckline is a nod to Arabic tradition, where the groom
presents his bride with a necklace. Snobar nods her head, beams and
agrees with him just as several belt options are brought over.
The winner is a thin white strip accented with the same hand-done
flowers as Snobar’s dress. “We looked at lots of shapes of flowers,”
says Copping. “She really liked the tiny, meticulous, and artisanal
quality of this particular flower.” With the belt in place, everyone
gazes, mouths agape. Copping jokes, “Take her out for a good hamburger!”
Adds the mother of the bride, “I tell her to eat dessert!” And while
the young bride looks embarrassed, she cannot help but twirl once
Copping has placed it around her slim waist.
With the fitting nearly over, Snobar spies her mother’s dress in a
corner near the fitting room. “We reworked the embroidery swatch for her
and it features very oversize flowers compared to what Haifa has,” says
Copping. The resulting dress is fuchsia with an abstract floral motif
scrawled across the hem in matching hammered bullion. Her bridesmaids’
looks are just as elegant. “She’s one of eight friends wearing Oscar.
They’re all in ball gowns,” says Snobar of her colleague friend. “I
wanted them to be a little runway all their own.”
Snobar still has a few hours in New York before jetting off with her
friends to an undisclosed tropical mini-vacation and is on a mission to
find shoes. “I don’t like platforms,” she says matter-of-factly.
Whatever the heel, with this dress she’s already putting her best foot
forward.
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