With this quote in mind, we would like to say that our customers are the most important people to us. Every person we have worked with has been an absolute delight and we have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know each and every one of them.

We look forward to meeting all new customers and invite emails, comments, suggestions and questions. We take a great deal of pride in our customer service policies and work to ensure all transactions are completed to perfection. Historically costumed customers are, without a doubt, the nicest (and MOST fun) customers in the world.

Your Very Merry Seamstresses:

What started out as a sideline hobby for Heather Brown-Piper, has become a full-time, rapidly expanding business, landing her a designing role with Simplicity Patterns

In 1998, Heather Brown-Piper was working for the Oswego County Weeklies as the editor for the Salmon River News. She was born and raised in Oswego County, graduated from Altmar-Parish-Williamstown school district, knew the area well and thoroughly enjoyed working for the newspaper.

In her spare time, she was trying to develop her artistic portfolio by working on a series of unique fairytale paintings. She designed and created Renaissance and Medieval styled gowns for her models to pose in, then she would paint them wearing the garb. At first she gave the extra garments to her family members and friends to wear at Sterling's annual Renaissance festival, but after a while, they stopped accepting the clothing donations, saying, "Enough is enough!"

As her closets began to overflow with historic costumes, Piper decided to photograph a few of them and sell them on eBay. When the gowns sold for well over a hundred dollars, Piper was shocked. To see if the high selling price was a fluke, Piper designed, sewed and listed four more gowns. All four sold at astonishingly high prices, and requests for customized orders began to roll in.

"One customer requested a cloak, and another requested an Italian gown. I had no idea what to charge them, so I calculated the cost of the fabrics, and added on a bit more for my time. It hardly seemed fair to charge people for something I enjoyed doing," commented Piper. "But people were thrilled that they could finally purchase custom-made Renaissance garb somewhere other than at the faire."

Within a few short months, Piper was receiving more orders than she could keep up with while working her full-time job at the newspaper, so she made a life-changing decision to quit her job and start her own business, designing and manufacturing custom Renaissance clothing. At the time, Piper was also attending SUNY Oswego, majoring in theatre design.

"I was learning so much about costuming and scenic design at SUNY Oswego. I loved every moment of it, and knew that this was something I would enjoy doing as a career. I owe quite a debt of gratitude to my professors at Oswego. Their lessons have been invaluable, and I've used everything they taught me in developing my own line of clothing" said Piper

For the first few years, Piper sold her Renaissance clothing only through eBay. She was one of the first eBay members to open an eBay storefront, staying up late the night that storefronts first came available to the eBay public, making sure all of her pictures and descriptions were ready to upload. After her storefront opened successfully, a contact at eBay asked her to participate in their "Voices" forum. Piper agreed, and flew out to San Jose, CA for several meetings with eBay staff members. They were particularly interested in the success of Piper's eBay storefront, and when eBay staff member Jim Griffith began writing the eBay Bible, he included the Piper's success story in the book.

After a year of successful selling on eBay, Piper was having a difficult time keeping up with orders and managing the eBay storefront, which continuously required updating. Piper's husband, Brian, decided it was time for Heather to have her own website, so he built one for her at www.verymerryseamstress.com. The website went live in January of 2002, and has been thriving ever since. The Very Merry Seamstress site receives, on average, between 2000-3000 hits per day and has become a popular site offering historically accurate and historically inspired clothing for re-enactors, theatres and wedding parties, catering to customers all over the world.

Anyone who has attended a Renaissance festival has likely seen one of Piper's original creations. She has clothed actors, actresses and faire patrons alike, from peasants to kings and queens. Last year Piper provided her unique Elizabethan neck ruffs for the dancers in Christina Aguilera's touring company. Earlier this year, Piper was shown wearing her Jane Seymour Tudor reproduction Showtime's "The Tudors, Royal Stylemakers" program, which was a fashion companion program to their miniseries "The Tudors."

Most recently Piper was approached by the arts and crafts director from Simplicity Patterns, and was asked if she would be interested in working with them to create a line of patterns based on her own original designs. Piper accepted the offer without hesitation, and worked through the spring on the first of her designs, due out soon in Simplicity's catalogs and stores around the world.

"It's been great fun to work on this project with Simplicity, and I'm really looking forward to see the first Very Merry Seamstress patterns in stores," Piper excitedly explained. "It's an incredible honor to be working with such a fine, reputable company, although, it's going to be strange to browse through the pattern books and see my designs in them."

Over the years, Piper's Very Merry Seamstress business has undergone several changes. She realized she was no longer able to keep with the large number of orders coming in, and had to make a difficult decision to either stay on course as a very small one-woman show, or give up some of the control and hand over some of the work to other seamstresses.

"I'm definitely a type-A, need-to-be-in-control type of person, so I knew it would be really difficult to entrust the work to other people," admitted Piper with a reluctant grin. "Ultimately my husband convinced me that this type of business growth would be crucial to the success of VMS, so I gave in and asked a few more professional seamstresses to join the team." The new Very Merry Seamstresses live all across the United States.

"The way this business is set up, I don't need to have people working with me on site. I can work with seamstresses who live anywhere, which allows me to hire only the best in the business," explained Piper. "I'm not limited to seamstresses who live within a ten-mile radius. With the internet, I can work with seamstresses anywhere in the world."

She has several seamstresses sewing for her, based all across the country, including her sister, Erin Coe who lives in Virginia, manages the business and sews the peasant attire for her.

Coe was schooled in finance and accounting at SUNY Oswego in New York. She has been an instrumental player in a number of successful startup companies, providing financial, legal and back office support. The start-up companies she has worked with include a Long Distance Telephone Company, a Competitive Local Exchange Provider, a Real Estate Title Agency and a Mortgage Processing Center.

Her own start-up company, VMS Safety Products, began in 1999, was sold for a profit in 2001 and continues to provide security seals and anti-tamper products worldwide.

Coe resides in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband, Patrick and two young children, Ethan and Daphne.

Piper also has a seamstress in California who focuses on movie reproductions and men's clothing for the Very Merry Seamstress website. Piper recently added a milliner, a jeweler, a shoemaker, a corsetiere, a Civil War era seamstress, and a pre-Renaissance seamstress to the Very Merry Seamstresses team as well. The only seamstress she has ever met in person, is her sister. While it requires a great deal of trust to work with people she has never met, Piper says that the women who sew for her have extremely impressive backgrounds in costuming and research, and she has never doubted their ability to follow through on all the orders she sends them.

Even after bringing in several new seamstresses, Piper was still having trouble keeping up with the orders, so she and Coe decided it was time to consider offering a line of ready-to-wear mass-produced historical garb. Coe and Piper approached Piper's husband, Brian, and asked him if he would be interested in designing the new website and opening a three-person partnership with them. He agreed, and began developing the site.

Brian has been working with new media since 1998 with an emphasis in creating online learning courses for hardware, software and soft skills. He has developed learning, websites and multimedia solutions for organizations such as Xerox, Eastman Kodak, Ford, Honda, Carrier, Fuji, Benjamin Moore, Microsoft, IBM and MasterCard.

"I really enjoy high-adventure activities like skydiving, rock climbing, kayaking and snowboarding," said Brian, "But the most frightening thing I've ever done was getting involved in a business with two sisters."

While her husband was developing the website, and her sister was filling out paperwork for trademark names and creating a corporation, Heather began to design a line of historically-accurate and historically-inspired clothing. At this time, their new website is up and running, and all 40 of Piper's prototype designs have been made into samples and patterns, and are ready to go to production. The site, www.renaissancegowns.com, opened for business on July 1, 2007.

"We're really hoping to experience the same growth that the Very Merry Seamstress has experienced," said Heather. With the release of the Very Merry Seamstress line of patterns, Piper's dreams may very well come true.

Heather lives in the Rochester, NY area with her husband Brian and their two children, Elizabeth and Adam. When she isn't sewing, she enjoys rollerblading, rock climbing, and pestering her husband to work on the websites.

Our Guarantee to you:

You, our customers, are the most important aspect of this business.
Because of that, we will go to the ends of earth for you to ensure your happiness.
If, for any reason, you are unhappy with your purchase, please contact us and we will do everything within our power to correct the problem. Your satisfaction is our priority.

About the garments:

We finish all of seams either with a serger or other professional finishing methods, including mothods that are appropriate for the era.

Most bodices and corsets are boned using 1/2" capped and coated steel. If we use something else, we'll make note of it. If you prefer something else, let us know. We use a boning similar to "bayleen" on curved lacing points and in special instances. If you have questions about boning, please ask. We'll be happy to explain anything you'd like to know.

We use double-sided corset-grade grommets on all garments that have grommets.

All garments are created in a non-smoking workplace.

About our Customers:

We welcome customers of all sizes, ages, interests and walks of life. Please don't be intimidated by ordering over the internet. Drop us a line and ask as many questions as you like until you feel comfortable. We can also provide you with references from past customers. Remember, sending an email never obligates you to buy a gown. It only opens the doorway to a new friendship. We're looking forward to hearing from you and we will never share your personal information with ANYONE else.