As an 11-year-old in Montreal, Henriette Arnold received her first store-bought dress from an aunt, with the promise she would wear it Easter Sunday. When she learned that another little girl had the same dress, she refused to wear it, yielding only after her mother reminded her of her promise to her aunt.
After church, the dress came off, having been worn for the first and last time.
When her mother asked her what she wanted to do in life, Arnold replied she wanted to design clothes “so that will never happen to me again!”
Such was the early inspiration of Richton Park’s own haute couture designer. Although her job isn’t as simple as waving a magic wand, Arnold has been compared to Cinderella’s fairy godmother by more than one client.
“It’s incredible the work she does, from the design to the hand stitching,” said Angie Deschamps of Park Forest, whose Victorian-era wedding dress was designed and made by Arnold.
“Happy just doesn’t come close to describing how I felt when I saw my dress,” she said.
For more than 30 years, Arnold has worked the specialty stitches, applique placements, the bustles and the showy necklines that make all the difference in dresses for special occasions.
A certain bodice, a delicate fabric, an accent of lace, a line of sequins–Arnold says such tricks can make heads turn.
“When a man sees a woman in a dress that he can go for, believe me, they are both excited,” said Arnold, 59, in her light French accent.
Getting to that point is Arnold’s job, and the process of dressing the body begins at the top, she explained.
“My expression is, I have to pick at your brain,” Arnold said. “I don’t know what you like, but give me something to work from and I can design it.”
As the customer talks, Arnold, with sketch pad in hand, puts her pencil to sheathing a human figure in the finest her imagination can offer. One line–long or short, straight or curved–can make all the difference for the wedding gown, prom dress, costume, or mother-of-the-bride creation, she said. Pictures from magazines are helpful, but Arnold won’t re-create them.
“She had me research Victorian-era dresses and bring her my ideas,” Deschamps said. “We sat for about four hours discussing what my wedding dress should look like. To her original concept, she did some sleeve changes, added a few pleats, and by the time we were done, I saw her sketch of my dress. It was amazing,” marveled Deschamps, who is having a mannequin made on which to display the dress, to complement the Victorian motif of her living room.
Each outfit displays Arnold’s personal touch.
“I develop a trust with the customers. When I do the (pencil) design, it is precise enough so they know where I’m going. I’m proud to be a designer/seamstress,” she said, “and it’s very important that your final product looks like your drawing.”
She selects the fabrics from favorite stores, including Supreme Novelty, a Chicago fabric store.
“I know their stock so well, I can call on the phone and tell them I want the fabric in the second row on the lower level,” she said.
Richard Schneider, one of the owners of Supreme Novelty, expects to see Arnold about every two months.
“She appears and spends a few hours here. She walks in and she’s very astute,” he said. “She makes unique garments, and often she can find that one-of-a-kind fabric here, the ones that aren’t being sold or manufactured anymore, and she’ll have an idea of what she’ll do with it.”
But Arnold also finds things when she’s not really on the hunt. A trip to a local fabric store can result in the discovery of a special button, a twist of thread or an applique that will go into a box awaiting just the right piece.
Arnold’s living room serves as her workroom/salon. To the right is the sewing machine, and directly behind that in the picture window is a cutting board where fabric is measured. Arnold has her own “library of fabrics,” indexed bolts of pastels, shades of white and darker hues that stand side by side in specially made shelving. Three mannequins are arrayed with works in progress — a bridal dress that’s ready for a fitting, a costume for a major benefit and a flower girl’s floor-length dress. Off to one side are plastic boxes with everything from threads to snaps to sequins.
In another room, Arnold has her deluxe products, including laces that sell for $225 per yard.
“I consider myself an expert at lace,” she said, thumbing through boxes of the French imports. Some Arnold will use as is, and others will be taken apart and reapplied as she sees fit.
“Imported lace is our specialty,” said Supreme Novelty’s Schneider, who has ordered three dresses for his mother from Arnold. “But I will say that Henriette has her own technique of cutting things up to where they’re unrecognizable (from the original) when she uses them.”
Although Arnold may use just one sewing machine at a time, she has another half-dozen sewing machines held in reserve for special needs.
Arnold acquired all of this through hard work and determination. Those qualities, as well as her personal sense of style, were obvious at an early age.
Her late mother recognized her child’s artistic talent and enrolled her daughter in an accelerated home economics class so that Arnold could be accepted into a design school. At that school, her classes included pattern design, mannequin fittings, millinery, sketching, coloring, anatomy and the history of costuming.
“Anatomy was the most difficult. I wondered why I had to learn the design of the body, but now I can recognize the problems my customers have,” such as scoliosis and osteoporosis, Arnold said.
When Arnold married for the first time and moved to the United States in 1963, she worked at a job for less than a year, then set her craft aside. She became “Susie Homemaker,” she said, because her husband told her sewing and designing were making a mess. Realizing how unhappy she was, she divorced him and returned to designing to support herself.
She married Albert Arnold seven years ago and said she finally found someone who truly understands her talents and supports her wholeheartedly.
She has made costumes for productions at the Illinois Theatre Center in Park Forest and Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and done a variety of specialty projects. The one that has won her awards as well as a new friendship is designing Victorian period costumes for Lisa Mackal of Evergreen Park. With her husband, Roy, Mackal competes annually at a celebration at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan in honor of the 1980 film “Somewhere in Time.”
Costuming for this event is the one job Arnold does from pictures. The more precisely the costume matches the outfits Jane Seymour wore in the film, set at the turn of the century, the better Mackal’s chances of winning. This year, Arnold designed a stunning dress of three shades of blue with matching overlay coat, a period hat complete with Russian netting and a handbag that included an antique silver clasp.
“I have to go into a mental state for the Victorian work,” Arnold admitted. “I start planning a year in advance, and I research the costume.”
This year Arnold and her husband were guests of the Mackals at the Mackinac Island program.
“When Lisa came down, it was like, `Stop the clock.’ It was unbelievable,” Arnold said of the crowd reaction. “This year they didn’t give prizes, but if they had, Lisa would have walked away with first place.”
Roy Mackal calls Arnold “a perfectionist. Most of the other costumes go about two-thirds of the way, but Henriette’s leap right out. I don’t know how she does it. It comes alive, and (for Henriette) to work not from patterns but from visuals like the movie is amazing to me. You don’t find people like her floating around.”
Arnold doesn’t work for prizes, she said, but for the satisfaction of knowing she has created something that makes the customer happy. Ten years ago, Arnold began focusing on bridal gowns. Her rates are comparable to bridal shop prices (she declined to be more specific), but she added that she also delivers individual attention, even attending the wedding to assure that the bride looks beautiful in the dress.
Brides come for three fittings. At the first meeting, Arnold sketches the dress and takes measurements. Arnold suggests a focal point at the back of the dress.
“I like to emphasize the low back. For one thing, it’s ignored, and secondly people spend more time looking at the back of the dress,” she said. “I like a focal point. It’s powerful enough so once you have their attention they look elsewhere as well.”
When the dress is cut, she sews it inside out, then leaves it that way through fittings and further adjustments.
If changes are necessary, Arnold will make them at the second fitting.
“You go for this fitting, and it’s like she’s creating this dress as you’re standing there. Everything is pinned to fit you,” Deschamps said.
At the third visit, “the bride tries the dress on just as she’ll wear it. It’s pressed and ready to go, and she is so excited at seeing the finished product,” Arnold said.
“I’m going to do everything to make it the best day of your life. I want people smiling,” Arnold stressed. “It looks good, it feels good and it’s properly done. I cut it, I make it and I deliver it,” even going to the church for final primping before the bride walks down the aisle.
“My daughter, Jennifer, wouldn’t get dressed until Henriette arrived,” recalled Maria Baum of Inverness, who learned about Arnold’s skills when one of her daughter’s friends was married in an Arnold creation. “Henriette primped her and checked everything. She just took care of Jennifer. She really goes out of her way.”
June Oosterhoff-Hoops didn’t want anything frilly for her wedding in August.
“I grew up on a farm in St. Anne, and I’m very comfortable in a T-shirt and jeans. I wanted to wear Keds for my wedding, but Henriette said no,” explained the longtime friend of Arnold’s daughter, Nadia.
Oosterhoff-Hoops of Tinley Park consented to a candle-white slipper satin dress with modest details: an outlining of pearls at the neckline and the waist and lace applique on the bell sleeves.
“It was very simple, very plain,” Oosterhoff-Hoops said, “and I did buy satin shoes for the wedding.”
Arnold had known Oosterhoff-Hoops for so long that she knew the bride would be uncomfortable all day in dress shoes. Those gym shoes, though, would detract from the look.
What to do? Plan a surprise.
At the reception, Arnold presented Oosterhoff-Hoops with Keds bedecked not only in lace but also with twinkling battery-packed lights.
“It was really awesome, and a lot of fun! When I’d dance, the lights would blink and people couldn’t figure out how my shoes were made.
“Henriette is so creative. I can remember the night before prom she’d put a piece of fabric over her daughter’s head, start cutting and in the morning there’d be this beautiful dress,” Oosterhoff-Hoops recalled. “She is amazing.”
