Vivienne Westwood Created a Special Fabric for This Bride’s Golden Wedding Gown

When former talent agent and founder of Strange Field Flowers Genevieve Morano Campori met her now-husband Giuseppe through friends, the pair realized they attended the same elementary school. “We didn’t know each other,” the bride tells Vogue, but fate conspired to bring them back together, and they spent the early days of their relationship enjoying a long-distance romance, with Genevieve living in London and Giuseppe based in Milan.

Giuseppe moved to the UK just before COVID hit, and the pair went on to spend two years of the pandemic living together in the New Forest, where Genevieve’s family is from. “We’ve lived on the same plot of land for 250 years,” explains Genevieve, who uses plants and flowers grown onsite in her floral sculpture business.

Rather than a grand gesture, the couple’s engagement grew out of an ongoing discussion during lockdown about their future, and the prospect of starting a family together. “It turned into him waking me up in the morning and proposing to me just as I opened my eyes,” recalls Genevieve.

Even though Genevieve had always imagined having a traditional English wedding, Giuseppe’s roots meant a romantic Italian ceremony was on the table, too. “I would’ve been stupid to pass on that opportunity,” she says, laughing. On June 25, they exchanged vows at Giuseppe’s family home, a palatial property just outside Florence. The grand Italian setting demanded a dress to match. “The only thing I knew is that I wasn’t going to wear white,” Genevieve says. The alternative? Gold, because it “felt powerful,” and would glow as the celebrations unfolded at dusk.

“It had to be Vivienne Westwood,” says the bride, who worked with designers Marie and Galina to realize her unique, Baroque-inspired vision. Westwood’s archive informed the punky silhouette—a voluminous asymmetrical draped skirt, a corset with detachable sleeves and three-meter train—and the team created a special fabric crafted from duchesse silk lamé and Lurex organza. “Genevieve’s individual and modern choice of color and style complemented the classical opulence of the wedding location perfectly,” says head of couture at Vivienne Westwood, Brigitte Stepputtis. “The result was a seamless balance of rich color and volume, contrasting beautifully with the historical Baroque architecture of the intimate church setting.”

The dress had several layers and transformed into a column skirt, which Genevieve wore with a different corset for the post-ceremony party. Brigitte adds that the look can be “re-worn after the wedding time and time again, styled as an evening look or worn in more casual settings for many years to come.” She adds: “It’s the ultimate definition of Vivienne’s ethos, ‘buy less, choose well, make it last’.”

The bride walked down the aisle in vintage 1930s-era Dior Mary-Janes, and she called upon her friend, jeweler Taja Guirey, to design an oak leaf necklace that reminded her of the New Forest, where she grew up.

Giuseppe’s mother, interior designer Angelica, oversaw the decorations: sumptuous fabrics, palm trees rented from a local nursery, and candlelit table settings in keeping with the building’s 16th-century Renaissance charm. “We had to be sympathetic to the style of the villa for it to seem natural,” says Genevieve, who adds: “It turned into this very unusual house party.”

Traditional Florentine entertainment came in the form of the Sbandieratori flag throwers who led guests from the chapel where the ceremony was held to the sit-down dinner. They performed as the party feasted on “pretty much everything you can imagine to eat at an Italian wedding”: Burrata, mozzarella, cured meats and pasta were washed down with wine produced in the valley that lay beyond the building.

After dinner, Nancy Andersen and Luca Mantero from the band Babeheaven, “very old friends” of the couple, performed live, while Edie Ashley and Josh Nickerson’s DJ sets went on into the night. “The whole thing descended into complete madness,” Genevieve laughs. “The windows [of the house] were shaking from the bass, the china was dancing across the shelves.” Once the weekend was over, “We couldn’t believe how much fun it was,” the bride says. “We ended up crying for two days straight afterwards!”