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Like experience itself, Elisabetta Delogu is using layers of art, life and history to create remarkable wedding dresses that resonate with the heritage of her home in Sardinia, Italy.
Her languid, soft designs are each one-of-a-kind creations inspired by each bride and Elisabetta’s diverse impressions from travel, paintings by masters and keen research. The result is dreamy, elegant and refined bridal gowns that distance themselves from the commonplace. To her a wedding is not an event but instead a private, intimate and sacred experience between the bride and groom.
“I follow my instinct,” says Elisabetta. “Inspiration can come from life, research or influential painters such as Gustav Klimt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Francisco Goya.”
The expression is found in top-quality silks from the Como region, delicate romantic embroideries and complex patterns.
Elisabetta Delogu creations are a fusion of cultures taken to the next level that the public hasn’t before seen. She focuses on the cultural layers of the past with a distinctive nostalgia, yet keeps the present open, in flux, relevant.
The innovative pieces transcend season and trend — bridal gowns that are exquisite contemporary objects that surprise and reveal, as timeless as a great poem.
By combining meticulous craftsmanship with modern ways of thinking, Elisabetta tries to give an emotion different from what the market proposes. The approach springs from her background: Not one first rooted in fashion but art instead.
A high school graduate from the art path of Italian education in Cagliari, she later finished at the Academy of Belle Arti in Sassari with a degree in painting.
Yet fashion was always her calling.
“Since I was a child I wanted to create fashions,” she recalls. “I was fascinated by wedding dresses.” While very young she watched her grandmother crochet, then tried her hand.
By age 22 she bought a sewing machine and began her real work in garments. Her namesake brand was born in 2003. Today in downtown Sassari she has an atelier at Via Roma 99 and a separate workshop nearby.
“I work all the time,” she says. “If I were not married I would live my life in the workshop.” That immersion clearly shows in her bridal gowns. They are refined, textured works of art themselves. The flowing silks are enhanced with vintage and hand-dyed lace, some colored using tea, along with other carefully curated details.
“It’s a process of alchemy,” she says. “Everything in the process is nuanced, irregular. None of the dresses can really be duplicated.” Designs start out as a desire, followed by a dream and then one with fabric. “I free my mind for inspiration,” says Elisabetta.
“My clients are not very young brides who look for a Cinderella dress but those over 30, often creative professionals, artists and those from the world of theatre,” she says. “They are refined, educated and sensitive women who know how to recognize quality. They have the ability to make a precise choice.”
It takes at least a couple of weeks to make each gown. “From each woman I steal some inspiration to find a new solution,” she says.
Her creations are a marriage of high couture and poetry, the convergence of a diverse, expansive past and a clear contemporaneity. They provide a radiant moment that regains what long has been lost.
While the classic white dress remains supreme, she has begun to work in colors as well, using a palette of rosa cipria (powder pink), carne (nude), ivory and bronze-hued macramé lace for details.
Elisabetta Delogu dares to free her intuitive sense completely to rely on in to the fullest. Her biggest risks are taken on the catwalk. “Over the years I learned a lot from ‘errors’ – but they are not negative. They helped me find other solutions,” she says.
As a bridal designer she held her first catwalk show in 2009 in Milan. She remains connected to the fashion capital through a showroom she personally runs and frequent visits with friends and clients in the creative world. Her Milanese showroom is at Viale Bianca Maria 45. Her clientele is mostly Italian, but Japanese, American and Lebanese women also find their dream wedding gowns in her designs.
Elisabetta’s own dream is to have a presence in the U.S., but more especially, to create works for an important fashion designer.
To make the bride look complete and even more attractive, Elisabetta Delogu also designs and makes bridal accessories such as “coroncine”, delicate bridal headbands with pistils that gives a retro effect from the 1930s in a contemporary style.
She embellishes bridal gloves and shoes as well and has master goldsmiths to design and craft jewelry that can be inspired by antique Sardinian Phoenician personal ornaments, necklaces, earrings, bracelets and rings, long known for their stunning filigree work.