Jenny Packham - How to Make a Dress: Adventures in the art of style

Jenny Packham graduated from Saint Martins School of Art and launched her eponymous fashion label in 1988. Now with stores across the world, she is famed for her beautiful bridal gowns as well as her bespoke dresses for public figures including the Duchess of Cambridge, Adele and Dita Von Teese. She is based in London, and How to Make a Dress is her first book.

For Mathew

My Jean Harlow-inspired mood board a mixture of original photos and news clippings mixed with newer items, a lock of hair and lipstick-stained cigarettes. We were inspired by Jeans youthful personal wardrobe and her on screen bombshell style.

A studio shot. The sewing machine was my grandmother Gertrude Smiths, and it was given to me when I was six years old. The dress to the left is Joy, which was inspired by a vintage dress found in the basement of a museum in Fort William that was embroidered with the wings of jewel beetles. This photograph is staged to look tidy its usually so much messier.

Ditas Carmen Miranda-inspired costume was our first collaboration. We created tropical flowers in satin and encrusted them with crystals, attaching them to a forties style design hand sewn with overlapping white sequins. At the end of her performance in LA, Dita was left wearing nothing but the thong and nipple pasties.

] has become one of Ditas most iconic looks. The wraparound gown covered in smokey blue sequins and crystals is trimmed with layers of hand curled feathers to create the dramatic sleeves.

Women who capture our attention are often connoisseurs of colour. The Queen and Marilyns love of colour (and diamonds) makes them both unforgettable.

I have hundreds of these swatches. They are embellishment ideas created to inspire the designs for a collection.

My favourite editorials by Tim Walker and Mario Testino.

Photos of my family including my Dad, my brother Chris in his Gaultier coat, the infamous flamingo hat and my Dads jumper going up in flames.

Mathew and my daughters Georgia and Bern; and Mum, Dad and Chris in the back garden.

Kate Winslet looking resplendent on the red carpet for the Titanic 3D premiere at the Royal Albert Hall the dress we made in 4 days.

A few of the best red-carpet moments.

Leo and me the photo I was too ashamed to look at for months!

Mathew and I in the Loggia Room at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in London, December 2015 taken just before we got married after 28 years together.

I took this photograph at the Victoria and Albert Archive in Kensington. The dress belonged to Clara Mathews, who was married in 1880. Later I discovered she was the daughter of Isaac Merritt Singer famous for producing the Singer sewing machine.

My wedding dress was made from a dove blue Austrian lace, sewn together by hand without seams. My shoes were a gift from Christian Louboutin.

A beautiful shot of our bridal gown Eden, photographed by the brilliant Ellen von Unwerth on location in France.

Backstage images at our A Midsummer Nights Dream-inspired bridal show in New York.

This is a page dedicated to my friend, the artist Magda Archer who invited me into both her wardrobe and studio.

Chris Packhams pants. Shockingly showy and a reminder that you never know what lies beneath.

Backstage images at the Linbury Studio Theatre. The show was inspired by the Ballet Russes and took inspiration from the sets and costumes from Diaghilevs productions. It was a beautiful show, but as the fake snow-flakes began to fall onto the catwalk, so did my mood as I suddenly realised I had got it all wrong.

Ive been thinking about becoming a virtual designer. I could work without fabric and sewing machines and superimpose my designs onto your image, ready to wear on social media. I will render the fabrics to fit your body, manipulating the colours and giving brilliance to the embellishment with a swipe of my finger. You wont even be able to tell the difference and, after a while, the very notion that your dress isnt real will fade and, maybe, you will almost remember what it felt like to wear your look.

Imagine. With modern technology I could transpose the luminescent wings of a rare butterfly onto the surface of your gown, sending your friends into a flutter; or if you prefer, I could plant hollyhocks and sweet peas around the hem and watch in wonder as they begin to grow and entwine, edging their way up the dress, trailing off your shoulders in delicate disarray.

After all, material excess has had its day, and with my new-found digital craftmanship I will squash my carbon footprint and help to conserve our fragile ecosystem. The fashion industry and its compulsion for seasonal presentations to satiate our desire for constant consumption is now unsustainable. So rather than start counting my sequins and cutting my cloth to reduce the impact of my collections on the environment, I can escape to make eco-fashion, dresses that dont exist, and then with a tap of my finger transport my ideas into hyperspace, before they fall into your pocket with a ping and I count your likes with guilt-free gratification.

Pause. I cant do this. Already I can feel myself slipping away from the joy of being liberated from the treadwheel of fashion. Limitations have been the fuel for my imagination and to create dreams out of challenges has been part of my work. If I were to engage in unbounded creativity I may just implode. Even the choices I will make to help save our planet will force enlightened innovation. Paintings need frames.

Nostalgia for my art has already kicked in and I know that I will miss the trick of cutting on the bias to create a subtler silhouette, and that my fingers will ache for the touch of slipper satin. For years I have held the components of my work in my hands and often inadvertently taken them home, waking up to find crystals and pins lying beside me in bed. These tools and textures, integral to the making of a dress, are as inseparable from me as they are from each other. From inspiration to sketch, pattern to fabric, the making of a dress has been the structure that has held me, and my passion to dress others is the momentum of my life.

This is a book about fashion, but mostly it is a book about love.

You cant wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. Jack London

Where do you get your inspiration from?

As the journalist sits down in my studio and pushes play on her Dictaphone, I know that this will be the first question she will ask. Today I am showing her an edit of dresses from the last 30 years of my fashion label for an article to celebrate this milestone. I have chosen my favourite designs and they are hanging on a rail, forming a glorious jumble of colours and textures.