DALLAS — Of the 15 or so wedding gowns delicately suspended from black velvet hangers in the Vera Wang boutique at Saks Fifth Avenue, not a single one is white.
Ivory, parchment, cream and pearl, yes. Even a pale champagne that would look amazing on a fair-skinned redhead. But bright, blinding white? Not one.
And sleeves? There aren’t any of those, either.
The story is much the same in the bridal salons at Stanley Korshak and Neiman Marcus and to a lesser degree at more mass-appeal stores such as David’s Bridal.
Over the last 10 years, the bridal industry has undergone a stunning makeover. Thanks to the leadership of Wang and other high-end designers, women can now get married in gowns as sophisticated — not to mention sleek and bare — as anything to slink down a runway or a red carpet.
Details that once shouted “bride” — Southern belle frills and flounces, puffed princess sleeves, bigger-than-a-wedding-cake bows — are now as scarce as that blinding blue-white.
In their stead are beautifully bared shoulders and arms, gentle draping, subtle lace, delicate hand-embroidery, and shapes either liquid or sculptural but never too overstated or fussy.
It’s no surprise that more than a few of these gowns’ creators have roots in the broader fashion world. Wang was a senior editor at Vogue and design director at Ralph Lauren before frustration at finding a suitably chic gown for her own wedding led her to launch her line. And Richard Tyler, Carolina Herrera and the design team Badgley Mischka all had well-established ready-to-wear companies before their names appeared on wedding gowns.
But at least as important as the input of designers are the changes in brides themselves.
“Women are getting married at a more mature point in their lives,” says Nina Nichols Austin, buyer and manager of The Bridal Salon at Stanley Korshak. “Lots of brides are professional women. They’re very fashion-savvy, very discerning. They expect good fabrics and construction. They made the demand for gowns that were not polyester and covered in plastic lace.”
Hence the rows of gowns in rich, lustrous silks that line the second-floor workrooms at the salon, which sits just across the courtyard from Korshak proper. Austin points out two of the most popular choices: mikado, a heavy Italian silk that’s “a little like shantung, with a lot of body but lightweight so it’s comfortable even in the heat,” and crisp silk twill, “a fabric Christian Dior made famous in the 1950s.”
She also points out the subtle use of color: gowns in pale butter or “rum pink,” smatterings of silver or bronze beads, a band of pale blue ribbon.
On the fifth floor of Neiman Marcus in downtown Dallas, bottles of champagne sit on silver tuffets and gowns aren’t protected in backrooms but are right out on view — where even nonbrides can admire them. Just another aspect of the industry’s entry into the modern age, explains couture and bridal buyer Kate Dubas. (Not to worry: Inside the plushly appointed dressing suites, the full princess treatment still prevails. “We try to make sure the experience lives up to the fantasy,” says Dubas.)
Where wedding gowns were once considered “costumes,” Dubas believes that today, they often represent a woman’s first piece of couture or “ultimate dress.”
Most couture-level wedding gowns are priced accordingly, from $2,500 to $4,500. “But certainly you can spend more than that,” says Korshak’s Austin. Or less. If you don’t mind sacrificing top-level fabrics and construction, she says, there are “pretty decent copies” at stores that cater to the mainstream.
But for most brides, Dubas believes that “price is less an issue than simply finding the right gown.” After a bride accepts (or offers) a proposal, the gown is typically one of the first decisions she makes, and it sets the tone for the rest of the wedding, be it a formal church affair or vows exchanged on a tropical beach or in a Napa vineyard.
It may take a little looking, but a bride generally “knows the right dress when she sees it,” says Dubas.
“She wants her grandmother to think she looks beautiful and appropriate. She wants to knock the socks off her groom. And she wants to make boyfriend No. 3 think he really missed his chance.”
If one dress can do all that, who wouldn’t say “I do”?