​Jennie Boyer has two jobs and she loves them both. She talks to Sue Mason about her work as wardrobe supervisor at the renowned Stephen Joseph Theatre and her business designing and making unusual wedding dresses . . .

This Brown tiered dress is known as the “Barcelona”

Wedding dresses are draped over a folding screen in one of Jennie Boyer’s outbuildings. There are gowns in red, green, blue, gold, ivory and bronze. There’s even a tartan one.

Jennie isn’t a much-married man-eater hoarding her cast-offs, but the designer of some of the most lovely and unusual wedding dresses a bride could wish to wear.

Talented Jennie doesn’t just design the dresses, but makes them, too, in a studio at her farm at Thixendale, near Driffield, in the Yorkshire Wolds. It’s the same farm where, in another outbuilding, husband Adam Palmer produces oil made from rapeseed grown in the surrounding fields.

And for such a quiet, isolated place, it is a centre of real creativity – wildlife artist Robert Fuller is their neighbour.

Jennie grew up in Lowthorpe, near Burton Agnes, and met Adam when they were both at Driffield School. “I started making ball gowns when I was at college,” explains Jennie, a tall and striking blonde, dressed today in jeans and a casual top, accessorised with a crystal drop necklace.

“Being in farming – and I used to work at the local rugby club – there were always formal events going on.”

Her parents, Angie and Paul Boyer, are the publishers of Craft and Design Magazine, and her childhood weekends were spent at craft fairs. It was through her college design course that she began to study costume.

“My first job was at Harrogate Theatre, as wardrobe assistant,” she says, as we chat in the farmhouse kitchen. “A year later I took over as wardrobe supervisor.”

Two years later she became wardrobe supervisor at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre, where renowned playwright Sir Alan Ayckbourn was artistic director for almost 30 years and where Jenny, herself, had previously done freelance wardrobe work.

Alongside creating or sourcing costumes for actors during the day, Jennie was also busy making wedding dresses in her spare time. “My first one was for a friend who had a big wedding with a western theme,” she recalls. “She wanted it to be tasteful and not crazy fancy dress.

“The shape was based on a Victorian bustle dress. It was a taffeta skirt and corset and was a cross between a period cut and a modern cut. I also made a fascinator and a choker for her.

“The six bridesmaids had A-line skirts with corsets and the six ushers, the groom and the best man all wore stetsons; it looked fabulous. ”

The dress was a huge success and led to more commissions. “I found that working in theatre, you meet people who don’t want a white wedding dress when they get married so they would have them made,” she says.

“I did a couple like that and then I thought I would take it a step further, so I set up Arabesque Designs.”

Wedding dress designer Jennie Boyer, pictured in her studio at Thixendale, in the Yorkshire Wolds

At first, because of her background in theatre, the dresses Jennie designed had a strong period influence and even now this is the case to some extent.

“This year I have done a 1950s style dress in ivory with red petticoats and a dress for an art deco-themed wedding because of the building where the bride and groom were getting married.

“It was my best friend’s wedding and I was a bridesmaid. She wanted a dress she could wear again – it was green. For another wedding, I made an Edwardian-style dress and frock-coat and a huge hat with a peacock feather for the mother of the bride,” Jennie said.

“Because I have been trained in costume, I make dresses in a different way to some of the fashion designers. I use spiral corsetry steels when I make costumes for the theatre because they have to be worn for months; they are more flexible and comfortable than the cheaper plastic.

“In some respects, there is a slightly period cut to my dresses,” says Jennie, whose own wedding was blessed in a field.

“When I got married, my corset was based on a 17th century corset. But it all depends on the bride.”

Working as she does in the theatre, has Jennie made costumes for any stars?

“Not really because Scarborough is one of the places that the names start at, then they go off and do fabulous things,” she says. “But I have worked with Liza Goddard and Les Dennis. I helped do their washing and things like that. It’s quite down to earth.”

She enjoys the variety and the challenge of working on Ayckbourn’s newest plays as well as his earlier work.

“In the spring of 2008, I worked as costume designer and wardrobe supervisor on Woman in Mind, which transferred into the West End in early 2009. It was the first time I had done anything West End-based.

“I went to see the play at the Vaudeville Theatre and I was sitting there thinking, ‘I made that’.”

Jewellery made by Jennie

More recently, Jennie designed the costumes for Ayckbourn’s new play, My Wonderful Day, which opened in Scarborough in October before transferring to New York.

Jennie is very happy with her studio in the converted Victorian outbuilding, but wasn’t so sure brides-to-be would be. “Because consultations happen in the winter, I was very worried when I started that people would be bothered because it’s muddy. But they really love the setting,” she says. It is, indeed, a very pleasant room, with exposed roof timbers and a grey sofa where brides sit for a consultation.

There are piles of period fashion reference books and wedding dress source books; these are not only very useful, but they give the mums and bridesmaids something to look at when the bride is having her fitting.

“Vintage is very in, so I’ve done a lot of lace and pearls lately,” says Jennie, who also makes bridal jewellery. “If someone has a brooch that belonged to their grandma and they want to wear it, but not as a brooch, we can incorporate it in a veil comb or something like that,” she says.

“I keep a few pearls and crystals for weddings, perhaps to make a tiara, bracelet and earrings – but sometimes it’s just one piece that ties it all together.”

She refuses to copy a dress, nor will she make two dresses the same. “If someone brings me a picture and says ‘will you make me this please?’ I wouldn’t do that, although it can be a starting point and it often turns out to be a particular small detail she likes about a dress anyway,” explains Jennie, who made her own wedding dress.

“I had a fishtail skirt and an off-the-shoulder corset; it was modern, but based on an old one,” she says.

“I made that dress when I was on tour with the theatre as wardrobe mistress. We were moving every week so I was making the dress in the evening. I must have driven people mad but it was good fun.”

These days, Jennie works part-time for the Stephen Joseph Theatre, part-time making bridal gowns and the rest of the time on the farm’s rapeseed oil business, the Breckenholme Trading Company. The oil is already well thought of in this area and is used in the kitchens of top local restaurants such as the Pipe and Glass, at South Dalton, and The Wellington, at Lund.

“We put the press in last year and started to do the farmers’ markets to promote cold pressed rapeseed oil,” says Jennie. “Then we decided to give herb-flavoured oils a bit of a go and we also do omega oil for horses. It’s a real family affair because we do everything here and my dad designs the labels.

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