At Brickvention 2023 in Australia, one LEGO creation stood out so much that it literally walked out of the exhibition hall. Today we chat with builder Veronica Young to showcase her wonderous wearable LEGO wardrobe—hats, dresses and all!

While AFOLs are no strangers to hosting a LEGO-themed wedding, building an entire wedding dress out of LEGO is no small feat—proven by the fact that Veronica has already been invited to display it in the Masterpiece Gallery at the LEGO House in Billund later this year. We were able to chat with her all about it.

Sue Ann: Welcome to BrickNerd, Veronica! You recently exhibited a beautiful LEGO-built wedding dress at Brickvention 2023. From where did you draw your inspiration for this build?

The rear of the wedding dress showing the train

Veronica: In the past, I have built a few half-dresses out of LEGO and everyone kept saying I needed to make a wedding dress. Then Eamon Riley from Brickman exhibited a black cape at Brickvention 2022 and we chatted about how he had put it together. I realised I couldn’t replicate his method, but I really liked the plant leaves, and I had a lot of them in white, so I thought “let’s do this!”

I wanted the front to be all white because the front is purity and the back is party. I was playing around with the plant leaves on the table, trying to work out how to put them together and I came up with an icicle shape. I realised how beautiful it looked and that was my starting point. That section ended up at the bottom of the spine and another on the front and I worked from there joining the pieces.

Sue Ann: How did you get all of the parts to stay together in the wedding dress?

Veronica: I wasn’t sure how to do it, and then Michael Peebles suggested cutting the 3-long and 4-long bars and using them to strengthen the connection. It turns out black is easier to cut than white. I originally wanted to use all-white, but we found them a lot harder to cut and then I realised you weren’t going to be seeing them anyway so it didn’t matter if they were black.

the parts used to join together the plant elements

I cut the 3-long bar into four bits and the 4-long into three sections. The smaller pieces went between the small limb elements to hold them together, and then I put the larger pieces through one of the 1x2 plates with the rounded ends and connected the larger limb elements. I went through a lot of them—a friend helped with supplies and there were a number of BrickLink orders to make sure we had enough.

Sue Ann: How long ago did you decide to make the wedding dress?

Veronica: At Brickvention 2022, so 12 months ago. It took six months to build with around four or five rebuilds in that time. The top half was pretty much right and the bottom and the train were good, but the middle section wasn’t. I was being too much of a perfectionist trying to get it in a line at the front and a line at the back through the middle of the icicle shape.

Sue Ann: By an amazing coincidence, the dress happened to fit LEGO Masters Australia Season 3 contestant, Fleur Watkins perfectly. What was the process of putting it on her?

Veronica: It wasn’t made to come off the mannequin. l made it on the mannequin. It wasn’t made to be worn. But after it was set up at Brickvention, it was suggested I should have someone wear it. Fleur was the only person I could think of who was the right size. I asked her on Friday and she was so excited. We planned it for Sunday lunchtime at Brickvention.

For about half an hour beforehand, I was shaking like a leaf and was so nauseous. I was thinking we were going to pull it off the mannequin and it was just going to disintegrate. I knew I had to undo at least eight bits to get it off the mannequin, let alone get it on to Fleur. In the end, we slid it across the table, one guy grabbed the mannequin and we lowered it to the ground. Fleur then got in underneath with her arms straight up. We lost a couple of bits on the hip, but I knew they weren’t as well connected. Then I had to try to get those bits to stay together along with the bits I had already undone.

Sue Ann: Did you have to make any alterations in the moment?

Yes. Of course, I had no spare bar bits, so we broke apart the garter and the necklace and just made enough so the dress could fit her with just a few alterations. We only lost about six pieces with Fleur walking around in it. She had to walk like Morticia Addams because her heels kept getting caught on the dress. It was interesting, though, as the train looked beautiful against the dress on the mannequin, but when she was walking around, you could see the gaps in the sides. If I had made it for someone, it would have to have the extra bits on the side.

Richard Jones (Rambling Brick) suggested we take the dress outside for wedding-style photos. Fleur got down the stairs okay, but coming back up was fun as she couldn’t bend her knees. She had to go up side-on and had a couple of people helping her. The dress is beautiful on the mannequin, but her wearing it brought it to life. It sat the way it was supposed to fit.

Fleur watkins modelling veronica’s wedding dress in the carlton gardens at Brickvention 2023

Sue Ann: After all that, how did you get Fleur out of the dress?

Veronica: [laughs] We had to go to the Cosplay area as she was only wearing a slip-on underneath. There was only myself and another person, so we had to get one of the Cosplay people to help us as I had to undo it again and then get Fleur to drop enough so we could put it back onto the mannequin. It was so much easier having more hands. We had to hold it tight, but not break it. It did bend a little, but nothing broke.

Sue Ann: What about your other builds? You have built a lot of fashion-inspired creations over the years. From where did the inspiration come for those builds?

Veronica: I like doing weird stuff. Especially using stuff you find around the house, like the vases. I go to so many op shops (charity shops) and, one time, I was looking at what I thought was a vase; it really caught my eye. I found out later that it’s actually a port sipper, but it reminded me of an elephant and I knew I had to use it in a LEGO build. Another time, I found a vase with a tree inside the glass and I realised I could put the LEGO studs inside the bottom to make it look like a LEGO tree and then I could put some more around the outside. (Now I can’t get them out, but it doesn’t matter because it looks so good.)

port sipper used to represent an elephant. Now that’s NPU!

I got a lot of positive comments about them at Brickvention 2020. So many people wanted to buy them, but I told everyone these are things you can get the kids to do. You can buy a quirky vase or cup or anything and just make your own flowers to go in them. You can then change them for Mother’s Day, birthdays, Christmas or whatever. That gave people lots of ideas to do things.

Then there were the tutus. I found a pink one when I was op shopping and I already had a mannequin, so I put them together and wondered how I could adapt LEGO pieces to the design. I had the LEGO heart clicked onto it and then I did the top half from the middle to the shoulders which turned out well. There was also the dragon wings dress with a blue tutu. I’ve made a lot of half-dresses, but the wedding dress was the first time I made a full dress.

Sue Ann: You are no stranger to LEGO fashion! Can you tell me about your hats from Brickvention 2022?

Veronica: I made them after too much time sitting around in lockdowns due to COVID restrictions. I was looking for something to do and hats seemed the next option after having done shoes in the past. They easily filled the table. My favourite is the orange one with the brick separators. It came out really well. It was my first time gluing LEGO parts as the design was so fragile. I learned to not use super glue as it eats the plastic. That was not fun. It was fine until I transported it to Brickvention and the design broke.

Sue Ann: When you start a new project, what is your normal build process?

Veronica: I normally get an idea for something I want to build and then work out how to do it. The wedding dress is probably the one I put the most thought into because I’m not a sewer or a dress designer. I hated sewing at school!

I normally see something not made of LEGO and wonder how I can make it into a LEGO build. Like the shoes; the little jewels fit in holes of the Crocs and it made sense to have miners digging them out. The gumboot pirate ship was hysterical because why would you use a shoe? But it was so much fun! I really like doing the fun weird stuff.

With the wedding dress, the top came together so beautifully, but the straps didn’t work. I tried with one strap and it wasn’t right, so I tried with a second strap and it still wasn’t right. Then I did a row with the big leaves and it looked better but still wasn’t right. But then the second row, that was only half a row, set it off beautifully. It balanced it out.

Sue Ann: Creativity can come from anywhere! With all your crafts and creations, why do you build with LEGO?

Veronica: Why not? That’s the easy answer. I used to do a lot of cross-stitch, but that’s very hard on the fingers. LEGO is very hard on the fingers too—maybe I should get into painting! I think it was mostly because my husband got into it when he finished work and the kids have always had LEGO. It’s always been around, but I didn’t have much to do with it and then there were all of these new pieces and I discovered the fun stuff you can do with it. Everyone starts with following the instructions and then you just adapt a little bit more—you might like a kit and then just add stuff to it and you work up to your own builds.

Sue Ann: How often do you get to build?

Veronica: Depending on what it is, I tend to only build when I have an idea for an upcoming show. Sometimes I’ll have an idea during Brickvention and start then. Other times it will just be during the year as I get an idea. I don’t have a timeline apart from the shows. I mean, I do build sets when I find something I like. Otherwise, I might play around with bits, putting them together and seeing what works.

Sue Ann: What is your biggest motivation when building?

Veronica: It’s a time-out for me, and I like doing weird stuff. Someone called it “unique” which is a nicer way of putting it. I just look at things and think “we can do so much different with it.” Like with the plant leaves, they are great for trees, but they are also great for a heap of other stuff.

Everybody can build a castle. Everybody can build a house. Some people can build a car, but why can’t we use everyday objects to build? I can’t have flowers in the house due to my husband’s medical conditions, but I can have LEGO flowers and other pretty things without worrying about how they will affect him.

Sue Ann: Building LEGO is so meaningful for you. Which of your builds means the most to you?

Veronica: Before the wedding dress, I would have said it was Mother Earth. I found a lady’s head that looked so beautiful and peaceful, and I added the hot air balloon bits—which always looked like hair to me. I really loved that one.

Sue Ann: Do you still have it? Do you keep your builds?

Veronica: [laughs] No. Usually on the Sunday when Brickvention is finished, everything goes into a box in pieces. We’re lucky any of them have survived. The Mother Earth one survived for a little bit then I had nowhere to put it so I had to pull it apart. I think I still have a couple of the dresses—the tribal and train ones are still in boxes, but I pulled the pink one apart.

Sue Ann: Speaking a little bit more generally, do you have any advice for new builders?

Veronica: Play—easy, just play. If you are not confident, talk to people—go to shows. Any builder will tell you how they did it and why their MOC did or didn’t work.

Sue Ann: What is your favourite LEGO piece or the piece you like to use the most?

details of the pink tutu dress showing the use of the plant elements

Veronica: Probably the plant element. They are so good to do dresses with and flowers and lots of other things. That’s probably my favourite. Then the hair pieces—the hot air balloon bits—as they always look like hair. I was playing around with those bits as I was trying to do a ribbon for the bouquet but I ran out of time. Even when I was at Brickvention, I was trying to work out how I could twist it and join it to make it work.

Sue Ann: Lastly, what’s your favourite LEGO colour?

Veronica: That’s a hard one. Definitely not white! I like the dark blues and the purples and, surprisingly, that really fluorescent yellow. I picked up some of that at MUGs. It’s not necessarily a colour by itself, but what it goes with. Sometimes you think they will clash, but they really go together.

Sue Ann: It has been a pleasure chatting with you! And congratulations on being invited to exhibit in the Masterpiece Gallery at the LEGO House!

Veronica and some of her builds at brick gambier in south australia

Photos in this article are courtesy of Jay’s Brick Blog, Fleur Watkins, Michael Smith, Richard Jones, and Veronica Young.

What other wearable LEGO creations have you seen? Let us know in the comments!

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