about the designer

Katerina Bocci’s name has become synonymous with luxury bridal design. Her bespoke couture gowns are known for their grandeur, featuring luxurious fabrics, handsewn Swarovski crystals, intricate embroidery, and exquisite corsetry. 

Bocci is passionate about capturing a woman’s feminine beauty and individuality, which is personified in every one of her dresses. Gowns are fitted to perfection using traditional couture techniques.

Her experience designing bespoke wedding dresses and eveningwear spans more than 20 years. She has shown more than a dozen collections at both Couture Fashion Week New York and Bridal Fashion Week New York.

Born in communist Albania, Katerina was the only child of an artist-tailor father and homemaker mother. Katerina says growing up her life felt like a fairytale - her home filled with artistry, beauty and immeasurable love. Her flair for fashion was evident early on when she began making clothes for her dolls. Soon she was designing and wearing her own signature garments.

Clear about her future career from its start, she moved to Italy to study at Sitam, a fashion design school in Padova, Italy. She lived in a convent with Italian-speaking nuns, honing her skills working for an established designer between classes.

Upon graduation, Bocci returned to Albania in 1999, opening a couture atelier. War caused her once peaceful community to become unstable. In  2001, she moved her mother, husband and two young daughters to America to pursue her dreams.

She  found work at an upscale boutique In Michigan, tailoring designer eveningwear and wedding gowns. Word of Katerina’s exceptional craftsmanship  spread among the area’s fashion elite. By 2003, she was designing for clients one-on-one from her home.

In 2007, she was ready to launch her eponymous business and opened a 3,200-square-foot studio in suburban Detroit. Katerina and her European seamstresses, with support from her three daughters, have since designed thousands of custom gowns for fashion-forward women across the globe.

Bocci's team includes her three talented daughters, Kristina, Lela and Antonia. Growing up immersed in their mother's craft, they share her eye for design, passion for couture and adoration for each and every bride.