Many of the brides-to-be who come to wedding dress designer Cassandra Bromfield, come looking for a way to blend tradition with their own unique identity.

Ms Bromfield has a custom wedding and social occasion dress shop in New York City. Recently, she was on the Island to take part in the Bridal Spectacular held at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess and the Coco Reef Resort.

“My customers are those who want a creative experience,” said Ms Bromfield. “Mostly that is what it is. Some people want to have a custom design experience and others don’t. It is a different experience.”

Recently, one of Ms Bromfield’s customers wanted to use her mother’s wedding dress, but she didn’t actually want to wear it.

“I took the lace off of her mother’s dress and incorporated into a new dress,” said Ms Bromfield. “She did wear her mother’s veil, but it was redesigned to be appropriate for her and her style. So she essentially wore her mother’s dress.

“It is those elements that you can’t get in a bridal store. You might be able to get a few bits of lace on it, but there was something to the fact that I took the lace off her mother’s dress and put it on hers. It made it a lot more special for her. It wasn’t that the dress was so unusual, but the story is.”

Ms Bromfield said that many of her customers come in with pages from magazines they pulled out years ago.

“Sometimes I think that I am designing wedding dresses for women who haven’t decided that they are getting married yet,” she said. “Sometimes people come in with a picture of a wedding dress pulled from a magazine years ago. They weren’t even thinking of getting married when they first pulled the picture out.”

She said that while traditions are still important to people, people are just as interested in creating new ones. She added this is particularly true since the make-up of couples has changed dramatically in the last 20 years.

“They are blended families,” she said.

“There are people who are culturally diverse but coming together. There are people who are religiously diverse.

She continued: “I would have to say that even though traditions are still important to many people, people are creating new traditions, because they are blending their cultures together.”

Differences arose, she recalled, when she designed a wedding dress for a black American bride and a Kenyan groom.

“Even though they were two black people getting married, they were very different,” said Ms Bromfield. “I asked her if there were some Kenyan cultural traditions we could add to the wedding dress. In the end, she wore a Kenyan wedding necklace.

“It was made for her but inspired by a traditional wedding necklace. Other people have done things like that to blend their cultures together.”

Ms Bromfield worked in the fashion industry for many years before starting to concentrate on wedding dresses in 1992.

“I always sewed,” she said. “My advice to young people who want to design clothes is that there are design schools that really make a difference. You really need to learn about the business side of it.

“The fashion schools will show you not only how to design and put patterns together, but also marketing and all these other things that make a difference in terms of your business. Most of all you just have to say you want to do it.”

She explained that many of her dresses are inspired by the African point of view.

“It is not the only thing,” she mused. “I just like pretty and interesting things. I have many books. I go to the museums. I like the thirties and forties.”

Ms Bromfield said her least favourite time period for wedding dresses was the 70s.

“I think the dresses all look the same and they weren’t even pretty,” said Ms Bromfield. “When people talk about the period that they like best of all the 70s is not going to come up very often.”

She said it is a “potpourri” of things that make designing wedding dresses interesting for her. “Sometimes those elements do go into the dresses,” she said. “Customers also come up with elements they want in the dresses.”

She always carries a sketchbook to capture any ideas that suddenly come into her head.

“When people come to the studio they may discuss with me the things they like,” she added.

“I may do some quick sketches to see if I am in the right direction. There are also some sketches they can already look at, samples I do and pictures. So they can get an idea what my size is like.”To see some of Ms Bromfield’s dresses go to http://www.cassandrabromfield.com .