Um, hmmm. Not sure why this post reverted back to an older version… anyway
I like Rosa Clara. There’s a little something for everyone, as the About page notes: “The collection is inspired by two trends: One, simple lines with close-fitting gowns. And the other, spectacular volume.” With the first, come feminine and modern wedding dresses. With the second, you see voluminous silk taffeta and silk organza paired with simple bodices.
Hellllooooo, Audrey Hepburn fans and lovers of all things vintage. I’m not crazy about the pleats on this wedding dress, but I adore the fact that it has pockets… and doesn’t show huge amounts of cleavage. This is, I think, my favorite wedding dress in this super image heavy post.
How pretty is this? The neckline plunges a bit much for my taste, but I’m loving the fluttery, gauzy mock sleeves. I do wonder if the bride could raise her arms all the way if she wanted to. Thoughts?
Spectacular volume? Sign me up! The beautiful rose detailing on the bodice is subtle enough to pair well with an absolutely huge skirt featuring the same style of embellishment. Yum.
This wedding dress is very pretty, but I think more suited to those brides with smaller (or perhaps non-existant) bosoms. Oh, well.
How about horizontal pleats paired with vertical pleats in a mermaid wedding dress? I desperately want the dress in this photo — putting aside the fact that I am not a bride — but before I’d wear it I’d need to acquire the body in this photo.
And here we have one of those body-hugging wedding dresses that manages to be both classic and feminine *and* quite modern and elegant. As much as I do like it, however, I think I’d have a seamstress remove the butt bow, which is where I think all that voluminousness was concentrated.
The nicest thing about the Rosa Clara 2010 collection is that it actually includes options, by which I mean wedding dresses with sleeves. There are even some full-length sleeves, both see-through and not so see-through, to choose from. Yay!
Heh. The much-maligned “butt bow,” how I sympathise with its shame. There is, in fact, nothing inherently wrong with large bows – no, not even perched above one’s backside. It is a style feature which has existed in many permutations down the centuries, and is no worse, in and of itself, than any other style phenomenon which has been overused in recent memory (“strapless wedding dresses,” anyone?). It is obviously used as the anchor to the train in this instance, and while the bow could be removed, it would leave the dress a little … linear. Which is fine if that is what one wishes, after all.
I think the model in the second picture CAN raise her arms. The “sleeves” are cut on the bias, which means they stretch, and they appear to be attached at the neckline only, making them/it a “cape effect” rather than true sleeves, but this is often how trends change – the field after endless field of strapless gowns, followed by the occasional gown with straps, followed by strange “sleeve effect” treatments, eventually, finally, to be followed by true sleeves. Which will then become HUGE sleeves, in one form or another, but that will be our granddaughters’ problem, most likely.
I’d love it if La Paloma wore sleeves if she gets married, La BellaDonna, but I don’t know that I’ll ever change my mind about really huge sleeves, even if her daughter decides to get married in them. Perhaps it’s something about being a child of the 80s… it’s easy to look back on whatever was in style when one was 0-10 years old and think of it as ridiculous for forever.
Wow! Talk about something for everybody! I, too, am in love with the gown with the fluttery mock sleeves and agree with LBD about their arm-raising potential. Of course, the gown seems largely inspired by a period of design that has always appealed strongly to me. That and the one with the pretty little bolero (which I think a more bosomy bride could carry off with proper fitting) both seem to be strongly flavored by fashions current immediately before WWI, though greatly stripped down for modern tastes.
And while the strapless gown with a huge skirt has never, ever been my thing at all, I have to say I’m loving the detail on that rose gown. Spectacular work.
They are lovely, and the model is able to stand upright without slouching. So, gold stars all round.
NtB: Oh, I too expect you won’t ever love huge sleeves – ESPECIALLY if they look like the ones you grew up with! That’s perfectly natural; it’s a strong feature, associated with a particularly impressionable part of your life, and will always have the contempt of the familiar for you – and that indefinable shame of something which is past its fashionable lifespan. Big shoulderpads went through the same thing – no, not the shoulderpads from the 80s, shoulderpads from the 40s – once their heyday was over. Until it cycled back in fashion.
Fashion’s Wheel is a lot like Fortune’s Wheel: trends get raised to dizzying heights, then crushed … and always, always cycle back in some permutation. It’s hard for people who aren’t consumed with fashion cycles generally to be dispassionate – and there isn’t any need to be dispassionate, really; half the fun of fashion is falling in love with something for its own sake.
I just tend to quibble a bit when people speak in terms of absolutes, especially for other people’s fashion choices: nothing wrong with butt bows in and of themselves, big sleeves, short skirts, long skirts, sleeveless, strapless, sequinned, paisley, red shoes, high heels, flats, boots – it’s just FOLIAGE, really, all of it. Do people criticize peacocks for their excess? Or sparrows because they’re just so … plain? Maple trees for their outrageous display? There’s room for everybody. That said, there are people who make choices for themselves that I wouldn’t make for myself – and that I might not think very flattering for them – but they’re entitled. They’re even entitled to not appeal to me. As long as it isn’t insanitary or harmful, I try to keep my flinching to myself.
(Yes, I went to peopleofwalmart.com. Sometimes I flinched. But I keep it to myself, since MY choices don’t always appeal to everyone I pass on the street, either – and I don’t particularly want to hear about it from them.)
Peopleofwalmart.com is my new favorite web site. Oddly enough, it is making me crave huge hair.
I should note that some of my family lives in Florida, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen almost all of the peopleofwalmart people while visiting them.
I noticed in one of the photos – I think it was a Very BigHaired Blonde Person’s photo – that she had a bolt of fabric she was putting in her cart. Wal-Mart carries fabric, when 99% of other retailers have stopped! And I think they still carry patterns, ALSO!
That, alone, impresses me.
Because I am a HUGE GEEK.
(That’s “99% of other retailers who once carried fabric in addition to their other goods,” not to be confused with “99% of fabric retailers, who have ALSO stopped, but that means they are now totally out of business, which SUCKS.”)
hi i am getting married really soon and just saw my dream dress and really don’t know how to go about it.
please if you can send me a website so i could find the shop and make an order.
thank you
sorry forgot to specify its the dress in the 5th picture
@Anon You need to find an authorized retailer of Rosa Clara gowns in your area. Easy as that!
Christa, Et All,
They sell these dresses in the US? I think I’m in love! HELP!!!
Thanks,
-P
@P Francis Indeed they do – well, Rosa Clara, anyway. I can’t speak for individual gowns, but if you email Rosa Clara (atencioncliente@rosaclara.es) they will send you a list of authorized retailers closest to where you are.