Getting married is a life-changing experience. For Isha Brown it was also a career move. Brown, 32, is a professional designer for Lovey by Isha, a bridal and special occasion clothing line.
But dabbling in bridal design only happened because Brown, who was designing beach clothes and swimwear at the time, was getting married.
“I was getting married myself and I couldn’t find a cute dress in the $1,000 price range,” she said. “And I had never made a wedding dress before but I decided, let me just go for it.
“So I got out my textbooks from fashion design school and I just started playing around with it and I made my own wedding dress.”
Brown said the more she experimented with her wedding dress the more she enjoyed it, so much so that she gave up working full-time on her Cherries Swim line to focus on opening a studio and online store for the Lovey by Isha collection.
“It was a total accident, I was just so into it I couldn’t stop,” she said about first designing wedding apparel.
She said wedding dresses under her Lovey by Isha line range $500 to $1,500. She described her dresses as “retro and minimalistic” with inspiration from vintage dresses.
Brown, now divorced, said she no longer has the wedding dress she designed for herself.
“I decided to get rid of it,” she said, laughing.
All she has left of that dress is a little square that she cut out for safekeeping for her daughter.
She said she enjoys making bridal clothes because of the sentimental value that’s attached to it.
“The bridal (collection) is really special because people come to you during the most important time in their life,” she said. “So to get to be a part of it is so amazing. To share their love and their excitement.”
Brown graduated a year early from Eastlake High School and immediately enrolled in fashion design school. She said she knew she wanted to be a fashion designer since she was 7. She said she would watch television shows critiquing what the characters were wearing.
She comes from a family of medical professionals, so being a fashion designer steered her away from the family path.
Brown has fond memories growing up in Chula Vista.
“It has a small town feel,” she said. “And everyone is really friendly.”
