MODERN REVIVAL

Anita Benes: Designer of Daalarna , Mother of 3, Wife

Career driven, ambitious, a truly inspirational woman

I love surrounding myself with positive and energetic people and being around women who prove that you can have it all; with hard work and dedication, of course! I had the privilege of meeting designer Anita Benes of Daalarna the other day. Anita specializes in creating unique, elegant and jaw dropping designs for wedding and evening dresses but also designs bridesmaid and flower girl dresses, mother and father of the bride and groom clothing and collaborates with other designers to create shoes and accessories! She is a busy woman with a strong team! Despite her busy schedule (I saw her calendar, trust me, it is absolutely packed) she made time to meet with me and discuss the intimate details of her personal and work life and how she came to who she is now.

What is a 'normal' day in the life of Anita Benes like?

I am very busy every day because I have three children and I work every day. I never work on the weekend. I would like to do everything in one day but of course, that is impossible. I wake up every morning at 6:00 and I prepare my children for school and take them to school each morning. The other thing that is important for me is fitness and doing sports each day. I go to a yoga and pilates studio with many of my friends and my friend is also our trainer. It keeps my mind and body healthy and I feel stronger to tackle my day. I start work around 10:00 and I am in the workshop each day meeting and discussing with my seamstresses to see how the designs are carried out. I think the best thing in my life is to create a new dress because it gives me pleasure to see the process of the design, but I also think it is so important to have a good relationship with my clients. Wedding dresses are not just a ' dress for one day' but in photos these memories are going to last forever. I also manage the showroom, I speak with partners about the fabrics, meet with new clients who arrive in the shop and coming up with a concept for each new bride. When someone chooses a dress from the collection, the process is much faster but when the bride wants an original design, from scratch, it takes much more time. When I finish work, around 18:00, I am with my husband and children and we read, do homework, prepare food together. I normally go to sleep around midnight and then start again the next day.

In that case, how do you balance home and work life?

That is the hardest thing to balance. I feel like when I have a LOT of work I feel like I am not too present at home. I get help from my family and my husband to get through those busy days because I run around a lot and after the big shows or exhibitions (New York, Milan, London) I like to go on vacation with my family to have a little escape. I think my children really like me doing this job though, because they sometimes come to the fittings, shows and exhibits and photo shoots and they enjoy the busy-ness and excitement of it.

What styles are popular for wedding dresses and how have the styles changed?

A lot of brides want to have the perfect wedding day and they usually have an idea in their mind about what they want. Every year the styles change. Now, women want very romantic, natural and vintage styles with lots of flowers... but I feel that many brides choose the romantic style. A few years ago the focus was very minimal. In 2001, when I started Daalarna, brides really wanted BIG princess gowns with lots of shiny beads and crystals and that was very popular. Brides now prefer something comfortable, light, a beautiful shape and good quality fabric. The styles of lace have changed and you can see how fabrics are being reinvented over the centuries.

Last week, in Paris, we bought a lot of new lace patterns and fabrics for the next collection for 2016.

But overall, the standard criteria for a wedding dress is for it to be beautiful, white and long, with good quality fabrics and a good quality design.

Little details change every year: pearls, beads, crystals, sequins...

What's interesting is career oriented women, who are strong in their work life and come in wearing a suit, become romantic and want to feel like a princess for their day. Sometimes career women are targeted as choosing simple dresses but they do not usually want a simple or minimalist design. They will go for a long dress, train, lace, veil; the absolute works and truly romantic.

Trends in wedding dresses don't really have an affect on women because every woman has their idea of perfection and they will choose the style which suits them best. There are the standard styles: mermaid, ballgown, a-line, empire waist-ed, etc and necklines and various fabrics to choose from.

What are your favourite things in fashion?

I like the designers Stella McCartney and Victor & Rolf when incorporating fashion into my everyday life. I personally like wearing sporty and comfortable clothing such as Nike and yoga clothing. But, we were recently in La Perla and Agent Provacateur and the designs really inspired me.

Is lingerie something you would like to start designing to go along with your collections?

Yes, perhaps, that might be something to think about for the future as it would go well with what we are doing now.

What inspired you to start Daalarna?

I started a business with my friend and we worked together 6-7 years after we finished school. We made suits and street wear collections. When I was at school, I studied textiles and worked mainly with masculine lines, so I created a lot of suits. Then when I had my second child, my life was very different from my friends' life - we just were not in the same positions in our lives. I wanted to try something new and when I was presented with an opportunity to make an evening dress for a client, it really set off a light in my life. I started to think about patterns for wedding and evening dresses and decided to make beautiful designs for women. So, it was the opposite from what I was doing previously. I wanted to use a lot of colours and pretty materials and in 2001, Daalarna opened.

How old were you when you first became interested in fashion?

When I was young, I didn't really pay attention to fashion. I preferred drawing and painting. I liked painting with water colours (me too!). I started to pay attention to fashion when I was choosing my courses in university. I was on a one year scholarship at ENSAD in Paris and I started to become more inspired by fashion there.

Which designers do you look up to?

Christian Lacroix, Stella McCartney, Elie Saab, Valentino...

But I have many!

What is the creative process of a Daalarna dress?

The most important is the fabric, which we get from France, Italy and England. Once I choose the fabric (lace, organza, tulle) I would like to create a strong concept for the dress - perhaps mermaid, princess style - and then I talk with my assistant Kata, my seamstresses and we choose the best idea and pattern for the fabric. We work with the team and everyone's input is very important for me. When we make a corset, it takes a while to create the shape in the correct way and we use the mannequins to get the right style and shape which will need to look good on the client. In the past, the corset was made with metal wiring and now we use plastic because it is less harsh. It takes about one week to make a corset and about 3-4 months for a dress. Everything is hand stitched, hand sewn. Sometimes we try the design on the mannequin and I don't like it, so we need to change the design. It can be easier to make a dress for a client rather than creating a brand new collection from scratch. I have about 50 dresses in a line, so it is very time consuming but it must be perfect and special. We have within one collection different style names such as Pearl, Secret, Mystic, Opera, City, Forever, Belle, Dream and White. When I meet with a client, it depends on what she is looking for, but a fitting for a dress can take up to 2 months because brides want to feel prepared with what they are wearing and if alterations need to be made, then we need to have enough time for that.

Where do you find your fabrics in England, France and Italy?

We have been working with regular partners and have had those relationships for over 8-9 years. I love the ombre coloured fabrics and I find those fabrics in England. I mainly buy lace from Italy and France. I also look for new partners but I prefer to work with known companies and keep those relationships strong.

What is your favourite season for weddings?

Spring and Summer! In Hungary, Autumn and Winter are not the chosen seasons for a wedding. I actually have not created an Autumn/Winter collection before. Even when I have clients from 'colder climate areas' who come to me during the cooler seasons, they are planning a destination wedding and are looking for a beach inspired dress. I had a client last week who had a wedding (yesterday) in Sweden and it was a challenge for me because her wedding was in an Ice Palace where it would be -10 degrees C. The wedding was to be in the Ice Palace and the honeymoon was there as well - in an ice bed! We made a faux fur coat and a special headband and the dress had very nice long sleeves with metal studs/beads and it resembled ice. It was an interesting challenge but it is not so common for me to design for Autumn/Winter.

What kind of shoe/bag is the best to pair with a wedding dress?

We work with Hungarian designer Reka Vago and when I make a new collection, Reka designs a new wedding shoe collection. We choose the leather and we think of the form and shape together. I personally like coloured shoes to go with a wedding dress. Perhaps pink shoes with pink flowers, a sash in a similar colour. It gives a pop of colour and it is not so basic and simple, but it adds some energy to the day. I also love silver, blue, a black shoe with a black bag. Matching the shoe to the bag always looks nice and it looks better than choosing all white everything.

However, I think the best is nude because it elongates the leg and looks very classy. When I have runway models with a size 40-41, nude shoes just make them look more elegant, taller and have a leaner leg and it is much better than having a big white shoe.

You make women feel special and like princesses for their day - what do you do to make yourself feel special?

I really enjoy travelling but I enjoy the simple things like resting at home, being with my family, working in my garden and reading a good book. I am reading the life of Coco Chanel right now - but I had to restart reading it because I never have much time for myself. I bought the book about 3 years ago and I just have been making time to read that. Sometimes I read with my children and it is important for me so that I can ask them questions about it and we can discuss what they read. I like to work out and travel everywhere. I enjoy business trips as well because I can meet lots of people and new clients. I really enjoy spending time in the mountains, in Austria and I really loved being in Norway near the water and mountains.

Which celebrity weddings did you enjoy working with?

Last year, I designed a dress for Anastasia Klimko's wedding to Matthaus Lothar, German football manager and former player. It was a celebrity wedding in Germany and there was a 10 page spread in a magazine about their day. He's very famous because he was named European football player of the year after bringing Germany to victory in the 1990 World Fifa Cup.

I also found Katinka Hosszú an interesting woman to work with. She is a famous Hungarian swimmer who competed in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Olympics and she had a beach inspired wedding in the Seychelles to her coach Shane Tusup, American.

If there was a celebrity or another designer that you could collaborate with, who would it be?

I collaborate with Reka Vago to create shoes and a Hungarian designer to create jewelry. However, I haven't really had time to think about anyone that I would want to collaborate with...

Can you give a piece of advice to an up coming fashion designer?

I think that this profession requires good education, good connections and good relationships with customers. It is important to have good ideas, good fabrics and it is important to focus on the basics, like knowing how to sew. There are a lot of good and interesting ideas and designers in Hungary and it is important to keep informed about what is going on around you and internationally.

If I were a bride, which dress would suit me best?

Since you are tall and slim, each design would look good on you! (Blushing!) You have light skin, blonde hair and blue eyes so I think that white would be too harsh on you. I think you would look better in nude or an off white colour. Long lace sleeves and a long, fitted dress.

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with me Anita and Kata and now I present you with photos from the workshop and showroom... Enjoy! :) xo

In the workshop, the women have been busy putting the finishing touches on the new collection (I am the first to have seen it - what a privilege... Giving you only a sneak peek for now) which will be shown at the fashion show at Millenaris Park next Friday, March 6th at 20:00. Buy your tickets online HERE !

Seamstresses very busy working away on the new collection in the workshop

The details, sashes, beading and fabrics

With Anita... I always manage to look like a giant next to all Hungarian women... :P

Should I stop wearing high heels? Nope... :)

Anita Benes, her assistant Kata and I went to the showroom - which was a magical paradise of beautiful dresses. I challenged the designer to choose ONE dress which would suit me best... Are you ready to see what she picked? :)