HANDMADE IS NOT THE SAME AS HANDCRAFTED: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
I recently came across an Instagram reel that completely shifted my perspective. Isn’t it incredible how certain social media videos can be so thought-provoking? Unfortunately, I didn’t save this particular reel, but in it, a tailor explained that all clothes—even a £5 t-shirt—are handmade. Of course, I knew this, but I had never thought about it in quite that way. I’ve always described Indie Bride London wedding dresses as "handmade," yet I realised that, in doing so, I’ve been unintentionally reducing them into the same category as fast fashion. Let me explain.
Handmade or handcrafted: What’s the difference?
Although those £5 t-shirts are also handmade, their production differs drastically from the creation of handcrafted garments. For a £5 t-shirt, machines cut thousands of pieces per hour, and each step of the sewing process is performed by a different worker. Each person sews the same seam on the same t-shirt design, over and over. This specialisation means they might not have the skills to sew a full t-shirt from start to finish, let alone create the pattern for it. Don’t get me wrong—using an industrial sewing machine requires skill. But working in a mass production facility is vastly different from artisanally crafting a garment by hand.
Consider a wedding dress: artisanally made Indie Bride London wedding dress is created from start to finish by an artisan dressmaker with years of training and experience. This is someone who understands the entire process of bringing a wedding dress to life—from sketching a design and creating the pattern to selecting the right materials, planning the garment’s structure, and finally sewing each part with precision.
Recommended read: The reel led me to do some research and I bumped into this wonderful and educating brand, Human Touch, by the tailor and fashion designer Juliet Seger, which shows how involved human hands are in the production of every piece of clothing we wear.
Greenwashing in bridal wear
All our clothing items are, fundamentally, handmade. Mass-produced garments are, more accurately, hand-sewn, with machines handling tasks like pattern cutting and fabric cutting. However, in some cases, labelling a piece of clothing as handmade can be a form of greenwashing, especially in bridal wear, where some brands take advantage of this term. For example, if a brand boasts about its "handmade" wedding dresses but produces them in a large facility in the Far East, calling them handmade is, quite frankly, misleading—if not an outright lie. Read more about greenwashing in bridal wear in our blog post. Truly luxurious wedding dresses are crafted with genuine artisanal skill.
Tweaking the language
I’ve learnt my lesson: simply calling a wedding dress "handmade" is sometimes not descriptive enough. Luxury wedding dresses, like those by Indie Bride London, are artisanally handcrafted. Using the right words matters, and I encourage all ethical bridal wear brands to choose language that sets us apart from brands that, sometimes unethically, mass-produce their designs.
- Miina -
Image credits:
Laura Viktualia