Fashion books are great resources for designers as well as fashion students because they are not only textbooks of how garments should be designed and made, but also many times covering wide range of designers in one book, or successfully showing works from the entire period of a designer's career. Here are four books we love to go back often when we need an inspiration, or a time to relax without thinking what we should finish by tomorrow.



This book is absolutely one of our favorites. It is basically made of the runway photo shots from each and every collection of McQueen's, and it would probably be the best way to show the designer's sensational, dramatic works of shapes, colors, materials, and patterns.

Title: Alexander McQueen, Genius of a Generation
Author: Kristin Knox





One great thing about this book is that it really shows details of the incredible works by the designer. This book contains so many interesting images and stories, and would be a great book to own whether you are in fashion industry or not.

Title: Valentino, Themes and Variations
Author: Pamela Golbin






The dresses in this book are from the Brooklyn Museum Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the book has quite a good amount of works by American designers which include Charles James (about 22 wonderful pieces by him).


Title: High Style
Author: the Metropolitan Museum of Art


This book is all about variety. It tries to cover all of the most famed designers we can think of to showcase a brief modern history of the dressmaking. Having said that, this book is very well edited, and it is probably thanks to the vast collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Some of our favorite dresses in this book are the ones by Christian Lacroix, Emanuel Ungaro, John Galliano, and Vivienne Westwood.


Title: 100 Dresses
Author: the Metropolitan Museum of Art

FashioNext Generation

As the winners of 2010 Fashionext competition, we were invited to a judges lunch on October 20th. It was a casual but insightful meeting where we met again with Tim Long, Curator of Costumes, Noren Ungaretti, President of Costume Council of the Museum, Cassie Walker, Senior Editor of Chicago Magazine, and Roger Price & Tommy Walton, Fashionext 2009 winners.

You can see the finalists' works here;

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/Special-Advertising-Feature/Chicago-History-Museum-I-Do-Chicago-Ties-the-Knot/FashioNext/

It was our first time to be a panel of judges, and we were greatly impressed by witty & sincere approaches that other judges showed to the these three students' pieces. It was such an interesting meeting where we not only had a good time but also learned quite a lot about how judging processes are done. We were also told by Ms. Noren Ungaretti that we would be invited as an honorary Costume Council members of the Museum for one year!

It's been such an exciting year for us with the whole experience we had with FashioNext 2010, and we cannot wait to see next year's finalists when we participate as a panel of judges.

And also, According to Mr. Long and Ms. Ungaretti, the Museum's next fashion exhibition will be the works of Charles James. It is one of those exhibitions we shouldn't miss!

Chicago Magazine

One of our brides told us that Chicago magazine had our dress featured. There was no photoshoot from Chicago magazine recently, so we checked out their website finding they have the following pages regarding FashioNext 2010.

http://chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/June-2010/FashioNext/

Our new designers' assistant

After Savannah moved to L.A. this summer (We already miss her!) to pursue her career as a designer, we were lucky enough to find Natalie to replace Savannah's position.

Natalie is psychology majored, so it was her extraordinary passion for fashion design that made us to choose her among many talented fashion students who applied for the position.
We believe she will be an important member of our team.

We asked her some questions the other day, and here are her answers;

1. What is your major at school?
I graduated with a psychology degree thinking that I would go into something in counseling. It was not until a couple of years after graduation that I realized my passion in both fashion and weddings.

2. Who is your favorite fashion designer, and what do you like about his/her work?
I appreciate many designers like Marc Jacobs, Chanel, and Dolce & Gabbana, but lately I've been shopping at BCBGmaxazria and BCBGeneration. I adore Max Azria's and his daughter Joyce Azria's designs because they're classy and chic whether it's for regular day wear or special occasions.

3. How do you like working for VWIDON so far?
I've only worked here for a little over a month I am absolutely in LOVE with VWIDON! I get to stare at gorgeous dresses every day I step into work, everyone is extremely sweet, and I get hands on experience in everything I want to learn about. It's also been a great experience being able to help brides-to-be find "THE ONE" or even just help them find out what exactly they're looking for in a dress. I already feel at home here.

4. Describe a wedding dress you will wear when you are getting married.
I appreciate many styles. I love anything from simple elegance to extravagant and chic. But at this moment, I know that I want a cathedral veil for the ceremony/pictures, and a side French netting pouf for the reception. I really like one-shoulders and over-sized bows/flowers. I think they're really fun and chic. I hope that they will still be in when I get married. In terms of the shape of the dress, I am not too sure. I'll be happy to try on the dress as long as it's not a ball gown and mobility is sufficient enough for the dance floor!

New editorial in Grace Ormonde Wedding Style F/W 2010

One of our inspiring brides was featured in the new issue of Grace Ormonde Wedding Style.
Please click below to view the editorial.

www.vwidon.com/pdf/fw_carly.pdf

We would like to thank Carly for wearing VWIDON for her one of a kind wedding. She looks absolutely stunning, and we are very happy for her!!

New York bridal market in October

We are excited to showcase our bridal collection in NYC this October. Our goal is to reach out to sophisticated, inspiring brides in many beautiful cities of the United States and other countries as well.

In our S/S 2011 collection, we will focus on silhouettes that are rich yet stunningly simple, styles that reflect glamour of our time, and details that whimsically twist traditional elements into something fresh and new.

Our invitations to selected buyers will be sent out 30~45 days prior to the NY bridal market dates.

Italian Connection...

Our long time friends, Marco (Marketing manager) and Francesco (Production manager) visited our showroom today to show us their most recent collection of satins, sheers, and more.

These Italian guys are the ones behind beautiful dresses of the designers who would never compromise the quality of materials they use for the production costs. Their company is located in Como, Italy, and has been producing the most luxrious silk fabrics for decades.

They always try very hard to bring even a very subtle change and improvement to each material to satisfy the delicate (and sometimes difficult) demands from many sophisticated designers, and we believe they are one of the very few fabric mills, even in Italy, who are successfully doing it.

One of the dresses from S/S 2011 collection

A sketch of one of the designs we are currently working on...

It is hard for us to dedicate ourselves for a certain period of time to start and complete our season collection because we always have a number of ongoing clients we are taking care of.

So what we do is we spread out our collection throughout the year, and work on it constantly. We wish we have enough time to make all the designs we love to make, but most of time, we have to select a few rather than trying to do everything.

This design will be made out of Kalika (very porcelain-looking organdy) and satin organza. We want it to be on a little edgier side of our collection, and will try to make it flowy and attractive when it is moving.

Photos of the FashioNext winner

Photos of the 2010 FashioNext winner dress have been uploaded to http://www.vwidon.com/. These beautifully shot photos were provided by Chicago History Museum. We are still very excited to have been selected as winners of this year's competition!

Wedding photos sent to Ovation TV

Thank you for sending your beautiful photos for the Ovation feature program for FashioNext!!! We hope all the photos we submitted would appear on the program.

Backstage snapshot

We took a snapshot photo while waiting to be seated for the finale. Model's look (especially her hair) and personality were perfect for the dress, and we love how professional she was throughout the finale and reception.

Winner of the FashioNext competition

Finale of the FashioNext competition was held on June 24th, and we were selected as winners!
We will upload photos of the winning design and finale/reception as they get available. We would like to express many thanks especially to Tim and Melissa from the Museum who helped us throughout the competition process, and the brides who have sent us their wedding photos for Ovation TV feature program.

This competition was such an inspiring experience for us, and there is no better award than having one of our designs to be a permanent collection of the Chicago History Museum. By the way, the museum's garment collection is the second largest to the Metropolitan Museum's according to Chicago Tribune!