New York: Where to Shop: Store Adore: Blue

Blue

Designer Christina Kara’s custom dress studio, Blue, looks like a Parisian seamstress’ back room circa 1921. From the street, plate-glass windows afford a view of a work in progress, placed front and center on a dress form, and worn-out floor samples hanging messily on racks. Clients understand that the studio’s dingy walls and haphazard mountains of fabric bolts, tattered pattern pieces, spools of thread, and tools (barely concealed by bits of velvet curtain) come with the territory when working with this premier artist. Brides, ’maids and party girls all over Manhattan have made Kara the go-to Euro diva for custom cocktail dresses and bridal gowns that reinvent classic glamour—think ’40s Dior replicas—and add a youthful, sexy twist. Kara offers many styles that clients can alter according to their taste and ideas, from short, strapless knockouts with sweetheart necklines and piles of ruffles to long columns with bustled flounces in back and a variety of bodices covered in Kara’s signature silk ruching. At all hours, passersby can admire blissful gals standing in the middle of the bright, chaotic shop, modeling nearly finished one-of-a-kinds as the designer makes her changes. Believe it or not, part of the bliss comes with the price tag: cocktail dresses start around $400, and Kara even offers a discount for groups of bridesmaids.