Say Yes To Bridal Fashion?
I’ve always been a little fascinated by the bridal industry. So much money spent and so much fuss made for a single day in your life! Recently, I was lucky enough to have the chance satisfy my curiosity by attending a discussion on bridal trends and the bridal industry and behind-the-scenes tour at Kleinfeld, New York’s destination wedding salon and the setting for TLC’s series “Say Yes To The Dress.” Kleinfeld owner Mara Urshel and bridal fashion editor Juli Alvarez of the recently closed Modern Bride spoke on the trends and the business of this high-stress industry.
First of all, just going into Kleinfeld is quite a trip. Even though I know I have in the past mocked the existence of a tv series about nothing but women trying on wedding dresses, I have to admit that I have in fact seen the series. As with all reality TV, the participants (who have to apply) are selected to up the drama quotient. I invariably end up thinking either a) “Wow, your friends suck!”, b) “Wow, your mom is a b****!”, or c) “Dude, CALM DOWN.” It is quite something else to actually walk into Kleinfeld and see the dresses in person.
The dresses? They’re all so… big. Not that all the dresses Kleinfeld carries are full-silhouette, but frankly, the ones that are are so huge that you don’t notice the others hanging nearby. I spent some time looking at dresses and trying to imagine wearing them, but my imagination completely failed me for many of them. Even the relatively straight, simple ones are a little difficult to picture on, and it is flat out impossible to imagine how a $20,000 full-skirted ballgown would look like if you’ve never tried anything like it.
According to Ms. Urshel, every dress at Kleinfeld is effectively one of a kind, and their stock is enormous. (We got a tour of the stockrooms, and believe me, that is a LOT of dresses.) Although they don’t have the room to house everything ever made by the designers they work with, even more dresses are available temporarily on weekday “designer days” and weekend trunk shows. Kleinfeld carries dresses starting at about $1500 and ranging all the way up to $200,000. (I have to think that a $200,000 dress, even if made personally by Karl Lagerfeld, is probably so big as to be completely immobilizing, but hey.) The median price of the dresses bought at Kleinfeld is around $4500. The emphasis here is on getting you exactly what you want and making it fit like a dream. It isn’t about the money, it’s about getting you the perfect dress for your big day, regardless of what it takes.
Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? I have to admit, I have mixed feelings. We all know I like fashion and I like dresses. Dressing up for your wedding? Fun! Where I start getting hung up, however, is the point at which I know I could be shopping at Dior for the amount of money the bridal industry would have me spending. It makes me think “Hey, I should head to Dior!” At any given time, there are probably at least three or four inaccessibly expensive things that I’m lusting after that I could mentally substitute for half of a $4500 wedding dress. It doesn’t bode well for my future wedding day fashion. I do love the idea of the perfectly tailored dress, but I have a little trouble with the concept of the only perfectly fitting dress I ever own being something I can only wear once. Despite all my skepticism, however, I must admit that last night I dreamed about trying on a Pnina Tornai dress at the beach. Right before twitching violently and smashing the boy in the face with my head. Oops. Ms. Alvarez said that it’s her belief that it’s about style and not cost, and that it’s completely possible to get a great dress for less than $1000 and make it your own. Good to know, although presumably you won’t be doing that at Kleinfeld.
As you might expect, bridal trends move more slowly than trends in regular fashion, at least as far as the dresses themselves are concerned. An industry in which getting your dress takes six months isn’t exactly well-equipped to be nimble, and even fashion-forward women are sometimes very traditional when it comes to their wedding day. Brides in New York and the other major cities, as you might expect, tend to be less traditional and more cutting-edge; Kleinfeld has even noticed a difference in that respect since moving from Brooklyn to Manhattan. If you’ve paid any attention at all to wedding dresses in recent years, you’ve probably noticed the overwhelming predominance of strapless dresses. Interestingly, Ms. Urshel said that they’ve had lots of women come in asking for dresses with some coverage on top, but that the designers themselves were slow to respond to requests for dresses with straps or sleeves. It apparently took Kleinfeld several years to get more non-strapless dresses in stock.
In accessories, on the other hand, fashions can move much more quickly. Ms. Urshel mentioned colored shoes as one of the biggest accessory trends she’s seen lately. If you’re walking down the aisle in a floor-length gown and no one can see your shoes anyway, why not a fabulous pair of scarlet stilettos? The shift from tiaras to headbands also apparently happened in the blink of an eye. (Personally, I have a little trouble imagining anyone over the age of 17 wearing a tiara with a straight face while not in the Miss America pageant, but to each her own.) Accessories are a relatively small part of the business, but are at the same time a key part of how each bride makes the dress her own. According to Ms. Urshel, fashion-conscious New York brides like to customize, to personalize their looks, and accessories are the easiest way to do that, particularly for the women who want to stay close to the traditional in the gown itself.
For a single girl in a serious relationship, it’s dizzying stuff. Hopefully I won’t be having any more dress-shopping dreams any time soon (if only to save the boy’s nose from further pulping), but I guess you never know… In the mean time, I think I’ll focus on my engaged friends. Perhaps one of them would like to be on “Say Yes To The Dress”?
I will attest that that some of those dresses were big enough to house 4 or 5 small children inside! There was a sea-blue feathery one that was perfect for Kai, in my humble opinion
Also, a funny note is that brides-to-be coming in for their final fitting will often pass out from a lack of food … trying to skinny down for that dress, ya know! … and Kleinfeld used to have ambulances coming by regularly to pick up the fainting types. OMG.
I *was* sort of mesmerized by it!
my oldest girl-child is getting married next year and we just put the deposit down on the wedding dress. We, meaning *me* of course. Oh god, save me from this. Luckily, she found something she loves that is a little over $1000.00 and looks quite amazing on her. Even then I get a little twitchy at the amount of money spent on one day of your life. I am all for a big celebration if that’s what you want to do but I get stuck on this underlying mentality that being a bride and a wedding is the thing all little girls wait for in their lives and is a necessary piece to being a complete person. I also get stuck on how there are two price lists, one for everyday and one for weddings and the same bottle of wine is anywhere from 10 to 30 dollars more expensive on that wedding price list. What are the odds I’m going to survive this without my own kind of melt-down?
Sophie, congratulations! All the best to your daughter and her groom. I hear you on the madness … the bridal industry has certainly figured out how to cash in on all this fantasizing. Keep us posted and stay sane! Have you picked out your mother-of-the-bride outfit yet?
The two-prices aspect of the wedding industry is one of the things that bugs me the most about the whole deal. Makes you want to get quotes for “a party,” doesn’t it?
I was never one of those girls who dreamed about their wedding day as a child, and it does sort of amaze me how good a job the bridal industry does in encouraging women to think that their day has to be “perfect,” with all the attending risk of let-down if something goes a little wrong.
oh god, just say no to mother of the bride outfits. Like seriously, can you actually see me in one of those things? I’ve had one friend suggest I should go with the mint green… I think I’ll be shopping in the bridesmaid section.