When British bride Katherine Ormerod decided to wear Vivienne Westwood’s classic Cocotte gown for her “go big or go home” wedding in Palm Springs, nobody was more surprised than she was. This is, after all, a woman who tried on more than 100 dresses in her search for The One: a no-stone-left-unturned odyssey (documented here for British Vogue ) that spanned short hemlines, cinched suiting and no small amount of colour. In the end, it came down to comfort.
“The ratio of the effect of this dress, compared to the amount of effort that wearing it requires, is just wild,” says Katherine, who confesses she would have skipped the Westwood boutique altogether had she not been writing about her dress search for Vogue . “I didn’t identify as a customer. But I put the dress on and it made my figure look like it’s never looked before.
” One or two other gowns had delivered almost the same silhouette created by Westwood’s legendary corsetry, says the writer and influencer, but it was “such hard work”, she adds, laughing. With the Cocotte, “the zip just slid up. There was nobody putting their heel into my back to fasten it.
” Aware she wouldn’t be the first (or the last) bride to fall for the outrageously flattering hourglass effect of Vivienne’s timeless creation, Katherine, who wore ’70s-inspired suiting to exchange vows with her partner Haden Gaynor in a legal ceremony in London over the summer, worked with the atelier’s resident stylist, Rosie Boydell-.