Musings

It happened at the holiday season…Ellen was only eight years old, but she had found our site and she was very determined to get her Mom a DressByDesign dress for Christmas. She pleaded with her Dad and he finally relinquished and let her select fabric, design and order the dress. On Christmas morning, Mom was surprised and Dad and daughter were delighted …..Ellen had done a fine job. Mom loved her dress and it fit perfectly!
 

My sister and partner, Christine, and I were recently attending a seminar. A man about our age approached us and read our name tags, which included our company name. Then he asked if he could give me a kiss. This is a total stranger, mind you, but I said yes, as long as it was on the cheek! After he kissed me he explained that it was a thank you kiss for making his wife a very happy woman. We had made a dress for her a few months back. Apparently it was the first dress that had ever fit her very well and was totally to her liking.

When the man arrived at our Allentown shop with a bottle of champagne, we were all sure he was newly wed. After all, what man not only buys his wife a gift certificate for a dress, but meets her at our shop with a bottle of very nice champagne in hand to help her decide what dress she’d like?? He even brought glasses, for not just them, but for all of us. We were down-right giddy, a combination of a bit of the bubbly and disbelief at this genuinely romantic fellow. WOW! We were all wrong, they’d been married for nineteen years…of course, I had to ask.

And so I begin…hope you like what I have to say….in a previous incantation I taught writing, hence, the assignment, no doubt. Allow me introduce myself to you ... Kathleen, mother of Marikate, sister of Christine, daughter of Marilyn. We three generations get along well and feel incredibly fortunate to have this opportunity to collaborate in this amazing venture of running our custom dress company. I wear a DressByDesign dress every day in our Buffalo shop and am accumulating quite a varied collection of dresses….nice perk. When gals come in to the shop, it’s just expected, right?

As soon as she saw the little black watch plaid sheath hanging among several other sample dresses in Dress By Design's shop on Allen Street in Buffalo, Janine knew she had come to the right place. Her son's wedding was in a few weeks, she had looked high and low and hadn't found anything, until now!  There it was, the perfect dress that she had envisioned ... sophisticated, elegant, classic, unique! She let out a major sigh of relief.