Bridal Replicas to Last a Lifetime

Step into a bright, sunlit studio and you are greeted by more than a hundred gorgeous figures in couture gowns forged by fire and earth. A peaceful, collected, gentle person stands by a work in progress and the connection between artist and art is undeniable.

Renée Weiss Chase is the artist. She recently welcomed a reporter to her Collingswood studio to talk about her latest undertaking, called www.cloth2clay.com.

Chase makes clay replicas of bridal gowns. In two to three solid days of work, she can create a 14-inch clay replica of a gown from a sampling of six to eight photographs of a bride. She counts buttons and recreates lace bodices.

“I start counting all the buttons…It is as exact a replica as I can get, the lacework, the beading…” Chase described. “People often want the gifts to be a surprise.”

Bride Leah Lang had her wedding day gown recreated by Chase as a first anniversary gift for her and her husband.

“I work in the apparel industry and this family friend of mine knows how much I enjoy dresses, fashion, elegance, etc. So she sent me a website link to Renee’s sculptures. I would like to start a collection of her pieces as I enjoy the style, uniqueness, and elegance of each of her pieces,” wrote Lang in an interview.

The personalized bridal sculptures cost from $300 to $400, and take about six weeks from start to finish. But brides are not the only silhouettes that line Chase’s catwalk of ceramics. Couture designs came first.

An accomplished fashion designer, Chase said her three-dimensional clay collection began about five years ago with her failure at the potter’s wheel.

She was on sabbatical from her position as head of the department of fashion design at Drexel University. She signed up for a pottery class to reconnect with her own creative spirit.

“I was really bad at it, a complete failure at the potter’s wheel," she said. "I thought I could do anything with my hands. It put me in touch with my students and gave me a reconnection to the learning process. Now every free second I’m in here working.” 

Her students know how demanding she can be.

“Renée is the type of artist who is constantly inspired by her environment, a renaissance designer,” said Twyla Grider, one of Chase's graduate students. “She pushes you in a good way to keep digging. She always says, ‘There’s more there.’”

The gorgeous figures, finished in any of four different firing styles, line shelves and a window ledge. Brides and headless fashionistas, hold their own places for a visitor to interpret. Many have been on tour with juried shows.

In May 2010, a collection of Chase’s figures were displayed at the National Building Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington where they were made available for public auction to raise funds for the museum. Her work is currently featured for the month of April in the Potter's Council of America 2011 Calendar.

“I’m just so happy to be doing what I do,” she said. “When the recognition happens, it’s a gift.”

Chase has had a successful career as a fashion designer, a professor and department head of fashion design at Drexel University, a fashion writer and author of two published books. Born in Baltimore, Chase grew up in Camden, where she attended Camden High School.

“I knew all my life I wanted to be a fashion designer,” she said. “From the time I was in fifth grade. I made my clothes. When I was old enough to be dating, I made clothes for my boyfriend’s mother. I had a really great teacher [in high school home economics].”

Chase holds a bachelor of arts degree in fashion design from Drexel University. She also earned a master's degree in science and technical communication from Drexel University.

Before moving to a condominium in Collingswood, Chase lived in Haddonfield where she raised her two children, Danielle and Jesse, with husband, Fred Chase.

For bridal information and to view the collection, go to cloth2clay.com.