BRITISH BAFTAs  FILM AWARDS 2024

On The Red Carpet with British Actor Jade Asha

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The British Baftas Film Awards 2024 , held at the Royal Festival Hall on the 18th February 2024, was the highlight of the year for leading actresses and actors alike.  Hosted by David Tenant – best known for his role in Doctor Who and, for delivering a ingenious opening sketch at the Baftas film Awards 2024 – which you simply must check out on You tube. However, moving on and not wishing to divert from the purpose of sharing the momentous joy of an entire team (and myself of course); the brief, was to recreate a breath-taking couture gown for this highly regarded event which was, a once-in-a-lifetime dream come true.

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TEAM SPIRIT

This opportunity, put a smile on everyones face in the atelier.  As well as providing the endorsement and boost in team spirit that such accolades bring, this has to be among the proudest moment in the career of any fashion designer seeking to carve out a space in a crowded market up against the big spending power of  international brands – by itself, a great feat of acheivement.  And, what makes this even more special, is the gown selected to debut unto the world stage, is none other than one of the gowns from the #DreamsofParis collection recently shot in Paris during 2023.

Working alongside Actor | Producer | Writer @bafta member ????️ @londonindependentpicture @hanghorror @ghostedromcom @duedatingfilm @actorpreneurbook Jade Asha was a real pleasure to work with and not quite as nerve wracking at all as we imagined it might have been.  Introduced by her stylist who suggested she drop by the studio last Tuesday to see the new collection up close.  It was clear Jade had done her homework the moment she arrived as she headed straight towards Paris, a silk organza ballgown with a giant oversized rose bodice.

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ALTERING THE GOWN TO FIT ?

Problem was, the gown was previously altered to fit the model who wore it in Paris and who was a size 8.  But this time around, resizing the gown upwards – though challenging – was not merely option!  The task was, to make it work period.  And, as if that wasn’t challenging enough, we had only four days in which to make it happen.

The workroom team were already in full production working on 2024 wedding dressess and staying on track for fittings booked for that week.  The challenge was that every available set of hands would be desperately needed working round the clock for the next few days – just to make this happen.  Having decided that it was doable – if everyone was on board – we began the process of negotiating timeframes and costs.

After a fair bit of negotiations between all parties, the go-ahead was given and everyone involved quit their homes for the remainder of the week to literally live, eat and sleep at their sewing machines until the job was complete.

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THE FINAL FITTING

It took two team members to unpick, recut and remake the majority of the bodice along with extended ruffle layers to fill in the parts of the newly cut back panels of the resized gown.  Jade was invited to attend an seriously early morning follow up fit session to check that all was going to plan before we entered the final stages of  finishing the gown for collection.  Thankfully (at this late stage) all went well!

The work ended around 11.30pm late on Saturday night afterwhich the gown was whisked away by couriers in the dead of the night and taken to its temporary home in a secret hideaway in central London.

Both myself and the machinist who had worked non-stop since 8am on Saturday morning, were by now  literally falling over with hunger.  Exhausted and crashing with hunger following 16 hours of non-stop focus to get the gown finished and delivered, we hit the town heading to the nearest McDonalds for a bite to eat which was literally crammed into our hungry exhausted bodies before heading to abandoned homes.

On Sunday morning, we checked in (as we always do – taking nothing for granted) before taking it in turns to watch and record the live Baftas Film Awards 2024, (mostly the Red Carpet moments as the stars arrived), which was streamed by several channels during Sunday afternoon. After several hours, we were exhausted from watching and decided to return to our ordinary lives and families and simply let time take its course.

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Jade On The Red Carpet At the Baftas

It must have been around midnight when the mobile began pinging and the first set of images of Jade Asha wearing the PARIS gown began to trickle through.

To see more ‘behind the scenes stories’ as they happened right up to the ‘on the red carpet’ moment, click this link  HERE .

Hope that you enjoyed this post and our journey.

Hugs until next time

Team Cynthia

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To see more behind the scenes clips of the Bafta Gown process – follow this link over to our socials for the inside scoop –  HERE

VIEW THE NEW BRIDAL COLLECTION  HERE 

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British Wedding Dress designer Cynthia Grafton-Holt Couture London, is the talent behind the one of the best gowns seen on the Red Carpet of the Baftas Awards.