The Perfect Bridal Company & Kay Heeley
The story behind the collaboration
Many of you may already know us here at The Perfect Bridal Company as exceptional shoe designers, who have designed and made bridal and occasion shoes for over 20 years. We are a small family run business in the heart of England, with our head office in a quiet little village called Newbold Verdon near Leicester, and European offices in Germany. Our passion is creating stunning shoes with comfort at the forefront of every style we create, because everyone needs a comfortable shoe on their wedding day or night out.
So how did the move into dresses come to be, and collaborating with UK dress designer, Kay Heeley?
With our shoe collections a huge success, it was only a matter of time before we started to broaden the range to include beautiful accessories such as bridal belts and hair accessories. The collections grew year on year and it was in the March of 2018 that dress designer Kay Heeley discovered our company whilst attending London Bridal Week, and was keen to find out more about our private label dress collection.
Kay is a successful UK based bespoke designer, and the private label meant she could offer her brides the very best of bespoke at a more affordable price, using a base dress. Kay created stunning photoshoots with the dresses she purchased and also made amazing transformations of some of the basic styles beyond recognition, which caught the eye of The Perfect Bridal Company’s director Daniel Mutton.
Kay and Dan had met a handful of times at trade shows, and one of Kay’s creations had sparked the interest of a working relationship between them, creating a new line of bespoke veils. A great lover of lace and drama, Kay started her first collaboration with The Perfect Bridal Company to design a range of beautiful, intricate cathedral length veils to help launch this new venture into the wedding veil market.
The photoshoot for these veils was the start of our working relationship with Kay’s photographer Adam Galliford who is known for his edgy and dramatic style of photography. We wanted to launch these images as an impact, to get noticed in a very saturated market and with the help of Adam and creative direction from Kay, our new veil collections did exceptionally well.
It was in the new year of 2020, when the world was in lockdown that Dan and Kay started talking about creating a dress collection together, after Dan saw one of Kay’s designs she had created as a concept for a bridal boutique she worked closely with, providing high end alterations. This dress was later created and used to launch the ‘The Perfect Bridal Collection by Kay Heeley’, and was aptly called ‘Rebecca’ after the bridal boutique owner. This dress was the face of the collection in year one as it was the initial spark which set the ball rolling for the next eighteen months.
During the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, Kay created eight stunning dresses inspired by key trends and beautiful lace fabrics, whilst keeping the Perfect Bridal signature of comfort at the forefront of her mind. Mixing this comfort with an extensive knowledge from over 20 years of dress making, Kay also built in exceptional structural factors into her gowns. The collection was ready to be put into production ahead of its launch at September Harrogate 2022 at Bridal Week.
With Dan’s long-standing relationships with some of the most reputable overseas manufacturers, Kay took the lead on the development of the dresses with endless conversations and spreadsheets, making sure no details were missed, at a time of great difficulty during the pandemic.
It’s at great testament to Dan’s solid working relationship with these manufacturers that the collection was ready to launch, on schedule and ready for it’s debut photoshoot.
Again, Kay and Dan needed impact to launch into the market and with the help once again from Adam, the Yorkshire location- home of our designer- was chosen. The Perfect Bridal Company was looking to create a lighter feel for their photography moving forward from the veil shots, so the outdoor shoot was the perfect backdrop. The only downside was that we did it on one of the hottest days on record- you can never predict the English weather!
The launch and debut showing at Harrogate (pictured above) was a great success and created lots of interest for both Kay Heeley and The Perfect Bridal Company. The collections were shown across all the catwalk shows for maximum impact. To top it off, we also had lots of feedback from stockists on what they wanted to see going forward, so as soon as the show was finished, over the next few months Kay designed four additional new dresses to be launched at March 2023 London bridal week. The foundations were now set, interest was growing and we secured a number of UK stockists in year one.
In 2023 The Perfect Bridal Company were looking to totally relaunch the look of the brand with new websites, new products and now the new dress collection. With so much new development going on, the future is bright for us and we are all gearing up for the biggest show in the UK this September, in historic Harrogate. We have beautiful brand new stands housing all our new and core accessory and shoe collections, as well as our stunning dress range by Kay Heeley. Exciting times ahead and we can’t wait to see what 2024 brings!
Click here to view the full dress collection.