Inside Helen Morley
About
The company that bears the Helen Morley name was founded in 1993 in New York City. It began with a collection of wedding gowns that were soon shaking up the industry with their innovative and architectural simplicity and were featured at Vera Wangs’ famous Madison Avenue boutique. Morley was first to introduce and popularize the strapless bridal gown. By popular demand, the collection expanded into formal evening wear and was quickly picked up by retailers like Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue.
Passionate about using the most beautiful fabrics, Helen scours the world to find some of the most distinctive laces, which she molds and manipulates to create dresses that are simple and elegant, while at the same time being complex works of fabric engineering. Her iconic styles are instantly recognizable. She is noted for her traditional dressmaking crafts and couture techniques which are evident in her famously body sculpting silhouettes
New designs are personally developed and tested by Helen, allowing the artist’s signature to reveal itself in each creation.
Helen
Helen Morley is the founder and designer of the couture evening wear collection that bears her name. Her timeless designs reflect her keen intellect, sense of style, her mastery of the craft of dressmaking along with a remarkable understanding of the needs of her customers. Born in England, Helen graduated with honors from Oxford University where she attained an M.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. She then decided to pursue a lifelong passion for fashion and sewing and went to the London College of Fashion to learn the technical elements of the industry. Helen relocated to New York where she started her own company in 1993.
As Helen tells it, she is still driven by an obsession for creating the perfect dress and continues to find new ways to explore the art and craft of dressmaking. Each design is a study in beauty and style which she will cut, drape and sew herself in order to coax the idea into three-dimensional reality. It’s a form of sculpture in fabric.
It is Helen’s belief that quality is more important than quantity. Her collections are small with only the best designs featured. That said, there are classic dresses that are as popular today as when they were originally conceived. In the words of her icon Coco Chanel ‘fashion fades, only style remains’.