BY ERIN MIGDOL
Huffington Post Gay Voices
For many in the lesbian, queer and transgender communities, the perfect wedding outfit is a clean, classically-tailored suit. But as HuffPost blogger and LGBT wedding planner Bernadette Coveney-Smith knows, it’s virtually impossible to find a chic, wedding-appropriate suit made for the female body in stores. So six months ago, Coveney-Smith launched Fourteen Style, an online boutique that specializes in pants, jackets, vests and shirts designed for customers of varying gender identities
What inspired you to create Fourteen Style?
I came up with the idea years ago when I started my wedding planning company specializing in LGBT weddings, 14 Stories, in 2004. It was kind of a constant demand from my female clients — “What am I going to wear to the wedding?” And the options were pretty limited. They could buy a man’s suit and have it altered, they could have something custom made, they could shop around and hope for the best in a department store, and really there’s nothing made for them. I went through it myself when I was planning my wedding in 2009. My personal style is, I’m not super butch or masculine and I didn’t want to wear a man’s tux. Finding that in-between was a challenge. One of my Twitter friends tweeted me an introduction to this fashion designer in Miami, Maria Alexandra Garcia, and she basically had the same idea, the same passion but what she brought to the table was something I didn’t, which was a complete background in fashion.
Read the interview at Huffington Post Gay Voices
