Kathy Heyndels Pleasing Princesses, Digitally

Posted On: October 6, 2008, by David White

Imagine, if you will, your daughter has searched alpha and omega for the perfect wedding dress and there it is - in the Kathy Heyndels collection, in Athens, Greece.

Traveling to Greece for a custom dress fitting has a quaint, Victorian feel about it, but it's just not practical.

So do the next best thing: Make a three-dimensional scan of her body and email the file to Giannis Togos, designer and general manager of the Kathy Heyndels design studio. In a few weeks, her wedding dress will arrive, beautiful, unique and perfectly fit to your daughter's frame.

Heyndels brings attention to Greece as up-and-coming fashion mecca
While it's not yet Paris, Milan or New York, Athens is starting to gain international attention and respect as a center of high fashion design. Behind this growth are the Hellenic Fashion Designers Association and a private marketing conglomerate, the Athens Fashion Showroom. These organizations have brought a great deal of attention to Grecian designers from both the fashion media and buyers from across the globe.

Among the most talked about design studios is Kathy Heyndels. The head designer is Togos, Heyndels' son. Heyndels, now in her seventies, has turned the design and management of the business to Togos, but she's still involved: "She is still here supporting the business," says Togos, who speaks with a rich Mediterranean accent. "With her experience, she also helps a lot by supervising to see if everything is going okay."