Manolo for the Brides

I’d not heard of her until stumbling across one of her wedding dresses recently, but Stephanie Allin is one of the UK’s foremost award-winning bridal fashion designers. Her designs are British-made, though it’s not impossible to find a Stephanie Allin wedding dress in other countries, and they’re almost all 100% gorgeous. The details are what really draws you in, from heavy lace to sophisticated belts to artful gathers. Here’s a sampling, along with what I like about each.

What I like: The belt! Sashes are all right and bows are okay, but a wide belt with a big belt really tickles my fancy on the right wedding dress. This belted wedding dress is luxurious without being stuffy.

(more…)

Wedding dresses are crafted in a variety of fabrics and fabric finishes, with everything from cotton to taffeta being fair game. Yet the last thing most brides-to-be are thinking about when they step into a bridal salon or log on to an online shop like House of Brides is fabric characteristics. Luckily, wedding dress designers and manufacturers make it easy for us all, pairing certain fabrics with certain styles to ensure that everything drapes and flows and rustles like it ought to.

Still, a little knowledge goes a long way when you’re searching for the perfect wedding dress! For example, knowing the difference between a fiber and a finish will ensure that you don’t unintentionally buy a wedding dress made of synthetic fabric when you have your heart set on natural fibers. The finish is what cloth looks and feels like once it’s woven – for example, taffeta can be made of silk or polyester, and it’s worth it to know which one you’re buying.

With that in mind, I’ve put together a short bridal fabric glossary that includes the fibers and finishes you’re most likely to encounter when shopping for your wedding dress and bridesmaids’ dresses.

Batiste
Made of cotton, wool, or polyester, this lightweight fabric is thin and opaque, but not nearly as transparent as organdy.

Charmeuse
A lightweight fabric with a satin weave that is softer and clingier than satin and less voluminous than silk finishes. Charmeuse, which is lustrous on one side and dull on the other, can be made with silk, polyester, or rayon. This is a slinky, slippery fabric.

Chiffon
This lightweight and slightly rough fabric is translucent with a soft drape. Made with either cotton, silk, or synthetic fibers, it is quite delicate and is usually thought of as a summer weight fabric.

(more…)

Wedding gown silhouettes can be confusing. Dresses are often labeled trumpet/mermaid because the terms are used interchangeably, but technically mermaid gowns flare out at the knee or lower (think of a mermaid’s fish body and her tail) while trumpet gowns flare somewhere between mid-hip and the knee (a la the bell of a trumpet). Any higher than that, and now you’re in dropped waist territory.

Personally, I’m calling the Justin Alexander Couture wedding dress below a trumpet silhouette, and an extreme trumpet at that. Maybe it’s more of a French horn silhouette?

I’m just going to come right out and say I hate it. To me, it looks too much like this wedding dress is having an identity crisis. Does it want to be a mermaid gown? Or is it a ballgown with a sagging waistline? Does the bride love every bit of her body other than some major cankles or giant feet? Unlike the mermaid gowns that at least swish prettily when the bride is walking, I can’t see this dress having much swish. NtB is just not feeling it.

What say you?

*Squee!* I’m over the moon for all the colored wedding gowns and flora-inspired wedding dresses in the Spring 2010 designer collections. It’s like they distilled all the beautiful colors and patterns of springtime and used them to dye and decorate what might otherwise have been rather plain wedding gowns. I’ve spent about an hour this morning clicking through various collections to find my faves in the hope that they will inspire and delight you.

Simple sheath dresses from Jorge Terra become something spectacular when embellished with botanical imagery. My first thought was that these would be lovely at an outdoor wedding, but then why compete with Mother Nature? Either one of these wedding gowns would be delicious at an elegant evening affair, especially one with a very simple wedding color scheme so the dress itself becomes a centerpiece.

Uber evocative of springtime, these fanciful wedding gowns from Vera Wang’s Spring 2010 collection bring to mind fairytales and all things feminine. I love the softness of the colors and the billowing fabric and the wide, wide ribbons. There are other colored wedding gowns in the collection, so if you’re a bride who has a big spot in your heart for color, it’s worth a look.

Finally, two gowns from Rafael Urquizar. Looking past the crown of thorns — what’s that about, anyway? — and the head scarf, I love the deep pink and floral detailing of the righthand wedding gown and the beautiful pattern and ultra-high neckline on the dress on the left. I’m afraid I can’t exactly tell if those are flowers or insects, but I like them all the same. The dress itself is quite striking, even without its sinister headgear.

All six are the perfect foil for a chilly December day, no?

As the weather grows ever colder here in Massachusetts my thoughts turn to those brides who chose wedding dates in late fall, the dead of winter, and early springtime. When one considers the continuing popularity of strapless wedding gowns — at least in the minds of the wedding gown designers — it seems less than surprising that weddings in May, June, July, and August are popular here in the northern hemisphere. So I tip my hat to the bride participating in a winter wedding who must make do with itty-bitty wraps, shrug herself into a bridal cloak, or cover her lovely gown with a bridal coat to avoid Jack Frost’s nip.

Unless, that is, she can find a wedding gown with sleeves. As Twistie and I have lamented in many a post, there’s certainly not a glut of sleeved wedding dresses out there. Oh, there are some, especially if the bride doesn’t mind shopping in the modest section of the bridal salon and making do with a sleeved wedding dress that looks as if it started life as a strapless wedding dress before getting whatever one might call the opposite of a sleevectomy. But there just aren’t that many lovely sleeved wedding gowns out there, particularly if you don’t count the ones with sleeves made of fabrics that do nothing at all to insulate the arms.

May I recommend that wintertime brides skip a whole bushel of frustration and simply have a dress made by a skilled seamstress or couture dressmaker? Doing so is frequently a whole lot less expensive than it sounds, and the results are often stunning. In my search for sleeved inspiration, the wedding dress with sleeves that I liked best was crafted by bridal designer Joan Shum.

Isn’t the White Dahlia wedding dress just divine? Made entirely of Dupioni silk (or any other material you’d like), it’s glamorous and vintage chic and offers a bit of coverage for the bride who’d rather not have to choose between wearing a bolero jacket for half the night and having visible upper arm goosebumps in all of her wedding photographs. The only flaw, as I see it, is the steep price tag — at $6,500, I’m guessing a lot of winter brides who might otherwise fall head over heels for this particular sleeved wedding dress will have no choice but to brave frostbitten shoulders… or to use this gown as inspiration when they make an appointment with their seamstresses.

Quite some time ago now, I wrote an open letter to wedding gown designers on the subject of why they refused to ever design sleeves. It was a popular article at the time, and it still gets a comment every now and again. It got one the other day that I have decided to make its own post. Here’s what Jennifer had to say:

I’m so glad I found this article!I was googling because I am thinking of making silk wedding dresses next year,(I have school to do right now)and wanted to know what woman are looking for.Almost all the wedding dresses I have looked at ARE strapless,or have plunging necklines,ect.Vintage dresses are great,but most of them are smaller sizes,so that can be a problem for a lot of women.If anyone would like to email me with ideas or anything theyd like to say about wedding dresses,they can at:jennystreasuresforu@gmail.com.I also make handmade jewelry,spin crochet,and knit,so you can check out my website:www.JennysTreasuresForU.etsy.com,if you’d like.If I were to sell wedding dresses on etsy(where you could return most dress if needed),would a seperate shop be better just for the dresses?Thank you!

So, folks, let’s help out a budding wedding gown designer. Let her know what you think about sleeves, butt bows, mermaid lines, crinolines, Etsy as a source for wedding gowns, prices vs quality…anything you have to say about what you love or hate or find confusing about wedding gowns.

The eco-friendly wedding dresses of yesteryear were naught more than organic hemp silk sacks, sometimes embellished with a sash of peace silk colored with vegetable dyes. Or at least that’s the way they looked to me, since the companies and designers producing them seldom did much in the way of fitting them to the bridal models they used. Oh, how times have changed.

Check out the Natural Bridal Collection by Morgan Boszilkov on her web site and in her her Etsy store. I know that tight-fitting mini wedding dresses aren’t everyone’s thing — and Lord knows I wouldn’t wear one — but I’m rather fond of Boszilkov’s hemp silk Pixie dress.

All of Boszilkov’s wedding dresses and bridal accessories are handcrafted using luxurious and sustainable fabrics, and 5% of all her profits support environmental charities. I particularly like that some of her wedding dresses are convertible in the sense that the lower part of the skirts are detachable. It’s a great option for the bride who wants a separate reception dress but can’t really afford it, and makes it more likely that she’ll wear her wedding dress again in the future.

I appreciate versatility. I really do. I like when the brains behind wedding dress collections give us both short sleeves and long, body-hugging silhouettes and big poufy gowns, and hemlines that are all over the map. But really, what is up with the wedding fashion house Justin Alexander? How can the same name that gave us this…

…also give us what looks to be a white cocktail mini-dress with chicken feathers randomly glued on?

Did they steal the design from the Ice Capades, or what?

(But seriously, don’t let that horrorshow above stop you from checking out PURE by Justin Alexander. It combines beautiful organic silk and cotton fabrics with natural embellishments like freshwater pearls and wood beads to create a line of eco-friendly — and 99% biodegradable, huh — wedding dresses that are just divine, especially for the destination bride. Note: Neither of the above wedding dresses are from the PURE collection.)