Bridal Dress Stores · Geelong / Bellarine Peninsula, Victoria · Visit in person
Karen Bourdamis opened Pearls & Roses close to three decades ago to become a wedding dress designer and dressmaker, and has “grown her dress shop from housing a single dressmaker to an entire in-house production team.” The store calls itself “Geelong’s premier dressmakers”, and the distinction matters: almost everything on the racks in Newtown carries the boutique’s own label. It is appointment, with two private consultation rooms.
The house label runs to 443 pieces, and bridal is built as a separates system as much as a rack of gowns — bodices, skirts and overskirts priced individually so a bride can assemble her own silhouette. French lace, Mikado, organza, floral jacquard, crystal beading, bubble hems and detachable overskirts. Alongside it sits House of Bourdamis, Karen’s own eventwear line of tailored blazers and trousers, and a budget line of ready-to-wear gowns.
The bride who wants something made, not selected — and anyone who has been quoted a Melbourne price for alterations. Custom starts with your pictures and ends with a gown nobody else owns, and the store also dresses mothers of the bride, bridesmaids, debutantes and Brownlow Medal guests. It has dressed partners and guests of Geelong Cats players for many years. Sizes run 4 to 24 across the published range.
Appointment, Tuesday to Friday 10am–5:30pm and Saturday 11am–4:30pm. The store asks for a maximum of about three guests and, unusually, explains why children are discouraged: “there is often dressmaking equipment in the area that could pose a safety risk.” Bridal gowns run, with bodices and skirts. Alterations are taken on gowns bought anywhere“Don’t go all the way to Melbourne, when we offer alterations right here in Geelong” but only for bridal, formal and evening dresses.
The cotton-concept dress. Every custom gown is made up first in cotton and fitted before a metre of the real fabric is cut: “If the cotton-concept dress is not what you had envisioned, then we can change it.” It answers the exact fear the store names in its own FAQ — “I had a dress custom-made once and it was awful.” The same workroom does bulk alterations for fashion labels: 300 jackets in three weeks for Ena Pelly, and 1,300 pieces for I AM GIA. Few bridal boutiques have that much sewing capacity behind the fitting room door.
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Bridal House has been serving brides since 1994 from a historic bluestone building on Little Malop Street, in the middle of Geelong — and the business is older than…
Courtney Mason makes and alters from a North Geelong studio — “bridal alterations and custom made creations for any occasion.” The route here is unusual: costume…
Embrace Bridal Boutique is on Ryrie Street in central Geelong, and it is family owned and run since 1932.
Lainie Brookman has been making gowns to measure from her Waurn Ponds studio since 2005, and she is the third generation of her family to do it.
SoHo bride is an appointment-only boutique in Newtown, Geelong, and it is not on a shop floor — it is in the upper-level loft of a warehouse, reached by a staircase…
