The first wedding dress

The first wedding dress Joyce Crowley ever made was for herself. But later, to raise a deposit on a farm, she stayed up late into the night, making dresses for other brides.

Each night, while the house was quiet and still, she would take up her scissors and cut into some of the most expensive fabric to be found in Taranaki.

Each morning, rising before the sun, Joyce would help husband Des milk the cows, before going home to prepare lunch, organise dinner, and sew until her children came home from school.

"Yes, mine was my first wedding dress," she says proudly. "I made a hundred after that, over the five years I worked to get the down payment. Every penny went into a special fund. I never even bought a necklace."

A bridal expert

Joyce worked out of Fitzroy Bridal Fabrics, and along with the beautiful embossed satins and sparkling silks, she often sold her dressmaking skills over the counter.

"I'd be selling the fabric and the customer would say, 'Now, who could I get to make the frock?' And I'd say, 'Would you like me to make it?' A wedding dress went out about once a week."

It didn't take long before Joyce had made a name for herself, as someone who not only sewed wedding dresses, but custom-designed them to suit the bride.

"Yes, I designed them," she smiles. "No such thing as a pattern then! Sometimes the girls came with ideas and they'd say, 'I'd like my sleeves like that, or the front like that,' but not as often as you'd think.

"I'd look at the girl and think, well, she's got a nice little figure, or she's got something wrong but we can cloak that…"

Joyce could sometimes be persuaded to make the bridesmaid's dresses too. "I didn't always make the bridesmaid's, but occasionally, if they said, 'Please will you make them!' then I would."

The first dress survives

The first wedding dress Joyce ever made was definitely a labour of love, and she wore it when she married Des Crowley, a farmer from Kaponga.

The couple recently celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary and for the occasion, her dress was put on display along with a portrait of Joyce on her wedding day.

Despite religious differences, not only did the marriage survive but the dress did too.

"Des bought the material for me. I had seen it in a shop in Hāwera - they had two or three fabrics  - and I loved one that had little tulips on.

"I was up here and my people in the South Island were all Presbyterian and they weren't very keen on this business of me marrying a Catholic.

"My father sent up the money for the fabric, but Des wouldn't take it, of course."

The results of a labour of love

After Des delivered the fabric Joyce told him he wasn't to see it again until they met in church.

"I embroidered all the corners and the front. And had tatting made for all around it. I didn't know what to have for my headgear, but my friend in Wellington had a big dove made of feathers and she brought that up. I couldn't do anything with my hair, but it just sat nicely on it."

Then Joyce made gold bridesmaid's frocks for the wedding party. "One was for Audrey, my sister. Mum and Dad sent her up to be bridesmaid, although they wouldn't come to see me married in the Catholic Church."

How it all began

By the age of 18, Joyce had already completed an apprenticeship of three years as a fur finisher in Wellington, working first for Universal Furs and then for the Siberian Fur Company.

But Joyce says she only learned dressmaking 'through college and then through mum, and then by experiencing making my own clothes.'

When rheumatic fever put a stop to farm work for the Land Army during World War II, Joyce opened her own dressmaking business in Hāwera after accepting a proposition by Mr Harrop, the town's haberdasher.

The idea was to open an exclusive salon, making clothes for local women.

Using a little Singer sewing machine, she built up a loyal following, making garments for customers who included Mrs Harrop - who could have afforded to buy more expensive garments - and Mrs Harrop's mother.

A very difficult figure

"I remember Mrs Sharp. Mrs Harrop came to me one day and said, 'My mother has a very difficult figure.' When she came, I got an awful shock.

"She was in her sixties and she had a hip that came right out. A genetic thing. And she said she needed a dress for her granddaughter's wedding, something nice.

"She brought out this beautiful chiffon, blues and greys, and said 'you'll have to get around this,' meaning her hip.

"So I designed a dress, fitted the top and then on the hipline, I put all these tucks on one side, and then I put a big bow on the top and you'd never know that bad hip was there.

"When she tried it on, she cried. She must have been well over sixty, and she said, 'I must tell you, Miss Young, that's the only frock I've ever had I've liked!'

Three fittings and it's done

Even with wedding frocks, Joyce only ever took two fittings.

"The third and it was done. I might tell you that I never had one of my wedding frocks come back for alteration. My mother taught me how to fit a person. I fitted the top and the bottom separately. That meant that I got everything perfect."

With no stretch fabric, sewing wedding finery was a tricky business, often using double layers of material as well as special backing fabric.

"In those days, most of it was over Vilene and you had to fit it absolutely perfect. If you were any good at your trade, you could see if there was anything that had to be done. I always lined the top and skirt and sewed it by hand inside so that when they turned it inside out it still looked good."

She stayed true to what her mother taught her. "You have to make the inside as good as the outside, Mum always said."

Pride and excitement in her craft

Always a confident craftswoman, Joyce admits making that first cut into the fabric never bothered her.

 "No," she laughs. "I couldn't wait to get my scissors into it! I'd have made my pattern, and most of the brides were small and slim, and away I'd go. I'd cut out at night, but I never did more than that.

"Everything had to be bang on. When you're dealing with expensive materials, you couldn't say, 'I'll cut another set of sleeves out' if you made a mistake."

Her second machine, an Elna, was used to produce 'the loveliest bridal frock of all' for a daughter of a friend.

"It was brocade, silver and white, and it had a fitted top. But she wanted something different, so, for the back I made two bustles and put one rose on the top and two on the bottom. I draped it with silver lame. It was absolutely lovely, but it was just one of many."

Going through the scrapbook

"This is my scrapbook," Joyce says, gently flipping pages. "You can imagine what it's like looking through it. This one had all frills and the last one came out on the train. I made all the bridesmaids with that one."

It's a bittersweet trip back into the past. Diagnosed in 2004 with macular degeneration, Joyce Crowley is rapidly going blind.

When she learned of her condition, and with her eyesight fading day by day, she made a concerted effort to sew her store of fabrics into clothes before it was too late.

As she says, her wardrobe has never looked so good, but that wardrobe marks the end of her sewing career.