Bell Street
Bell Street is Sydney's (possibly) first, (definitely) best vintage dress hire shop. We have an amazing collection of vintage, secondhand and handmade pieces available to hire out for parties, work functions, weddings or any special occasions. We started out in 2018 at 391 Illawarra Road, Marrickville and moved to our current location at 449A Illawarra Road in 2020. We won the Inner West Local Business Award for Fashion in 2022!
Bell Street Bridal
Bell Street Bridal is a custom made bridal dressmaking service where everything is designed and made in house. We consult with brides to dream up the perfect style dress for them, which has very little to do with 'body types' and very much to do with what they actually like - groundbreaking, I know. We then do everything needed to make that dress a reality - choosing & sourcing fabrics, patternmaking, cutting, sewing and any embellishments such as beading or embroidery. Ali first started making wedding dresses in 2009 and Chloe joined her in 2019.
The Bell Street Team
Ali Dibley (also known as Alexandra Kenworthy, for SEO purposes)
Ali is the owner and founder of Bell Street and feels weird talking about herself in third person. I studied fashion design at UTS and started out selling vintage clothes on eBay out of my uni bedroom in 2007. Then came an Etsy store of handmade clothes from vintage fabrics, a brief attempt at a small clothing label and a long career as a custom bridal dressmaker, mixed with a bit of casual high school teaching. I started the vintage dress hire shop in 2018. I also produce a podcast called Questioning Fashion with Joanne Gambale.
Chloe
Chloe has worked at Bell Street since 2019 and had originally taught herself to sew using YouTube tutorials. She has since been trained by Ali and now makes the amazing wedding dresses for our bridal clients as well as helping out with the shop and finishing all the ambitious projects Ali starts.
Robyn
Robyn (Ali's mum) is our vintage restorations expert - when new stuff comes in looking a little worse for wear, we send it home to Robyn for deep cleaning, mending and sometimes total remaking. She's not in store often but when she is you can be sure that you'll be VERY well looked after as she loves helping people choose the perfect outfit (we all do, but Robyn wins on enthusiasm).
Where does the name "Bell Street" come from?
Nowhere, really. It's just a random business name I came up with at uni. Sorry! Feel free to petition the council to rename Illawarra Road as Bell Street, it would make things a whole lot less confusing.