Salim Mehajer: Wedding dress team work around clock to create Aysha Mehajer’s exquisite 22kg gown

THE gown for Salim Mehajer’s bride, Aysha, was never going to come cheap. Six dressmakers worked round the clock for ten days to construct this 22kg French lace extravaganza.

IT IS now known as the Aysha gown and there will never be another like it — a 22kg extravaganza of French lace and Swarovski pearls and diamonds, all held up by a tiny bride.

A team of six dressmakers worked around the clock for 10 days to construct the exquisite gown worn by Aysha Mehajer, who married Auburn’s deputy mayor in a traffic-stopping wedding in Lidcombe on Saturday.

“Everything on her dress was crème de la crème, it was the best you could get your hands on,” said World of Nektaria designer Natalie Georgys, who created the one-off gown.

It was a last-minute decision for Aysha, a former beautician, who walked into Ms Georgys’ Melbourne studio on August 3, less than a fortnight before her big day.

“We started sketching and pulling fabrics and then by the end of it, I realised we were making this massive ball gown covered in pearls and Swarozovki,” Ms Georgys said, adding such an intricate design would normally take 12-15 months to make.

“I told my team and they were like, ‘We’re not getting that done’, and I was like, no it has to happen.”

Aysha Mehajer in the stunning World of Nektaria dress. Picture: Facebook

Half an hour after Aysha left, the dressmakers swung into action, dividing the work into day and night shifts. Everything except for the petticoat and corset was hand-sewn.

“We had everyone working on it for ten days from the moment she walked out the door to the moment she picked it up. It was an ordeal,” she said.

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While she wouldn’t name the price, she said the dress was the most expensive she had ever made, and was likely the most expensive made in Australia for some time.

“The dress is actually made with 325m of fabric in the petticoat that’s built inside the garment that holds up all the weight, which is about 22kg,” Ms Georgys said.

Designer Natalie Georgys (right) with bride Aysha at the wedding.

‘She’s a designers dream client,’ said Natalie Georgys of Aysha. ‘It was an honour to be part of that event and that family.’

The 17m-diameter skirt required a 16-layer petticoat to hold it up to create the ball gown effect, while the bodice was hand-stitched with French and Italian lace.

“Then we covered it with over 2422 Swarovski pearls, we also put more than 2000 Swarovski diamond crystals scattered all through the dress, we also had specks of Swarovski sparkles stitched into some of the lining of the fabric trim.

“We were worried it was going to rip apart because it was so heavy.”

The maker of Aysha’s dress says it will never be replicated.

The gown, which weighed about 22kg, was hand stitched with thousands of Swarovski pearls and diamonds and French and Italian lace.

Wearing the gown, which would have weighed about half the petite bride’s body weight, was quite a feat, and Ms Georgys said Aysha was poised and gracious the entire time.

“She just looked like a princess. The dress wouldn’t have looked that amazing if it wasn’t on her,” she said.

“She has a bridal gown designer’s dream body, her body is just perfectly symmetrical, she’s petite ... her little curves just fit perfectly in that dress, I felt like it was a really classy silhouette to go for that wedding.”

Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer with his bride Aysha at their lavish wedding in Lidcombe. Picture: Toby Zerna

Salim and his bride Aysha hold a party outside their house. The couple’s wedding involved helicopters, supercars, motorbikes, a fighter jet, and dancing drummers and closed off Frances St. Picture: Toby Zerna

“I’m honoured they actually picked me for her dress, she could have had any dress, she could have flown to Paris and got whatever she wanted, I was really lucky she chose me.”

World of Nektaria has since been flooded with inquiries about the Aysha gown, but Ms Georgys said it was a one off.

“I’ve told Aysha I’m not replicating that dress,” says the designer, whose business is built on custom designs. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to, I used up some of my lace from Paris from the 1950s.”