Book Review: The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle by Jennifer Ryan

My Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐

“Sometimes we just need someone with a fresh perspective to hold up a mirror and show us who we really are—who we could become, if we put our minds to it,”

In 1942, as WWII rages on, forty-six-year-old Cressida Westcott, a famous fashion designer based in London, loses her home and business in a bombing and is forced to return to her home in Aldhurst Village. Cressida, a rebel by nature, had left her home after losing her fiancé in WWI and her refusal to marry someone matching her family’s status created tensions at home. Venturing out alone, she managed to create a name for herself in the field of fashion design and has never looked back. Her nephew, Hugh and niece Violet are her only remaining family. Hugh appears to take after his aristocratic father and is overly conscious of their family status, serving in the War Office in London and disconnected from the people in his community back home. He is mostly indifferent toward his Aunt. Cressida, though initially reluctant, is drawn into the local sewing circle and becomes a part of the community- finding friends and family and a sense of belongingness after living alone and being absorbed in her career for the past few decades.

Violet Westcott, is a proud, shallow and entitled young woman. Having spent most of her life defined by the norms set by her father and brother she is class conscious and is intent on marrying within her status and is on the lookout for a suitable match. She is thrilled that her famous Aunt is coming to live with them. Violet’s outlook changes once she is conscripted and Cressida’s influence also plays an important part in helping her emerge from her family's shadow and reinvent herself as a woman of substance who knows how to hold her own.

Grace Carlisle, the local vicar’s daughter, is preparing for her upcoming wedding and approaches the local sewing circle ( the author has referenced the Make Do and Mend program the British government supported for balancing the shortfall of clothes and the rationing of fabric during the War years) for help in repairing her late mother’s wedding dress which she hopes to wear. She is dutiful, involved in her community and shoulders part of her father's responsibilities. Her father, Reverend Ben Carlisle, having fought in WWI still suffers from nightmares and also still grieves the loss of his wife. Cressida befriends Grace and takes her under her wing, recognizing her potential. Under Cressida’s guidance, Grace blooms and not only learns about fashion and design but also feels empowered to look at life differently and explore choices that she thought she had once left behind.

These are difficult times-air raids and bombings, food shortages and clothes rationing, but in their own way and in their community these women come together and contribute to the war effort as much as they possibly can. Their sewing circle soon extends to repairing wedding dresses. creating the Wedding Dress Exchange so that brides could have dresses on loan for their special day. As these three women befriend one another and the other women in their sewing circle, they are encouraged to reevaluate their lives- their dreams and aspirations, their life choices and the paths they envision for their respective futures.

With beautiful prose, and an endearing cast of characters, author Jennifer Ryan brilliantly blends fact and fiction to create a beautiful story of love, friendship and community set in of one the darkest eras in the history of the world. The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle is a beautifully written, uplifting novel. – a light and enjoyable read which is rare for novels set in this era. I enjoyed reading the Author’s Note at the end of the book which details the historical context based upon which this story has been framed.

"We are part of a circle of women, sharing the same dreams, holding hands through the centuries. They are all there, if you look hard enough, if you untangle the threadwork, peeling away the layers of stitching to find the fragments of lives, of hopes, and of love woven throughout."