About Us

Nicole Lenzen is a Brooklyn-based contemporary fashion atelier specializing in hand-made couture gowns luxuriously crafted from the finest silks, laces, vintage materials, and select sustainable/fair trade fabrics. We also offer the unique process of reclaiming a bride's mother's or grandmother's wedding dress by carefully deconstructing the original garment and restoring usable fabric in order to create a fresh silhouette and style that is tailored to the new bride. We offer an alternative to traditional off-the-rack dresses, while focusing on chic silhouettes, a perfect fit, and intricate detailing. Our one-of-a-kind pieces are custom-fit to the client’s measurements, complementing her individual figure and highlighting her most striking features.

Please visit our process page for more information on having a custom gown made.

Services

Custom Couture Bridal Gowns
From early stage concept discussions to the wedding day, every client can be guaranteed that she will be a part of a journey that is both meaningful and rewarding. Through our one-on-one process, we provide each bride a unique personal vision, an extensive selection of materials, a custom pattern based on her measurements, a series of fittings to ensure a perfectly tailored fit, and innovative detailing through haute couture construction. Our gowns are designed to compliment the bride's individual body type and modern lifestyle, insure comfortable wearability, and demonstrate the show-stopping qualities of custom couture. With the inevitable distractions and challenges of planning a wedding, brides can rely on our guidance for a fulfilling and memorable experience.

Reclaimed Vintage Wedding Dresses
We have a true appreciation for the timeless traditions of hand-made gown construction, as well as a commitment to incorporating sustainable practices into our design ethos. As such, we are constantly sourcing unique and difficult-to-find vintage materials as well as researching historical eras for our creations. Our process of 'giving new life' to a bride's mother's or grandmother's wedding dress is an exceptional way to honor the threads of the past while writing a new chapter in the family timeline. We carefully disassemble the original dress, restore the workable materials, and incorporate them into a contemporary design fitting for the bride. We optimize the use of fabrics and precious reclaimed materials through waste-free pattern making and construction. Our brides greatly value the sentimental process that comes with transforming a treasured keepsake into a fresh new style.

Nicole Lenzen Bridal Collection
Brides can also choose a wedding gown from our made-to-order collection, as is, or with the option to slightly modify details and materials.

Accessories for the Bride
To complete the look, we create custom accessories to compliment the bride’s dress including hairpieces, veils, and shrugs.

Ladies in the Bridal Party
We also design custom dresses and accessories for the right-hand women, as we realize that bridesmaids and mothers of the bride or groom also want to look and feel their best on the special day. If brides are looking for gift ideas for the bridal party, we offer sashes, scarves, handbags, and perfume.

Menswear
Not to be neglected, the men can have their fun too! We make neckties, pocket squares, kittels, breaking of the glass bags, and other accessories for the guys, customized in fabrics and colors that complement their outfits for the wedding.

Evening Wear & Special Occasion
As an extension of our bridal offerings, we also design evening wear and cocktail attire. Many of these chic and versatile pieces have been redesigned from wedding dresses that brides wish to now wear as part of their party or couture wardrobe options. Black-tie or other formal events such as a gala, debutante ball, Bat Mitzvah, or quinceañera celebration are all wonderful opportunities to commission a dress with the same stunning results as our high-end bridal gowns. In addition, we create beautiful and versatile custom costumes for dance, music, and theatre performances.

Meet the Designer

Contemporary fashion designer Nicole Lenzen is a true couturière whose timeless garments express the beauty of the individual through sophisticated design, custom fit, and hand-made construction. As a child she was evenly divided between right and left-brained activities, and her decision to focus on the creation of couture gowns ultimately provided the perfect opportunity for her to meld both her artistic and technical abilities. The Brooklyn-based designer welcomes the challenges of complex pattern making and construction for each individual client’s body type as well as the limitations posed by a deconstructed vintage garment. She finds the opportunity to work closely with brides to be uniquely rewarding because of the value placed on the iconic wedding dress and its significance in the timeline of a client’s life story.

Lenzen has worked as a technical designer and fit consultant for fashion names such as Brooks Brothers, Charlotte Ronson, Calvin Klein, and GIII Apparel. With an extensive background in computer science, she also spent the days of the dot-com era working in Silicon Valley, while moonlighting as a costume designer for theatrical performances in the Bay Area. Lenzen actively promotes and practices sustainable and low-impact fashion, design, and lifestyle choices. Beyond the design studio, she is a lover of local arts/culture, traveling, swing dancing, cooking, photography, and the outdoors.