Scrolling through Instagram last month, I stopped to stare at Lily Allen’s wedding photos. The images showed the singer, newly married to Stranger Things star David Harbour, smiling with an Elvis Presley impersonator outside the Graceland chapel in Las Vegas and hungrily devouring a greasy paper-wrapped burger.
But what really caught my attention was her dress. Made of ivory silk, the 1960s style had a buckled waist and A-line skirt that cut just above the knee. It suited her perfectly.
“It’s not vintage or bespoke, I got it at Dior hours before the wedding,” Allen told me. Rather unexpectedly, it was plucked from Dior’s spring/summer ready-to-wear collection.
Allen illustrates the growing trend for “off the rack” bridal dresses, which has been accelerated by Covid-19 and changing guidelines around weddings. According to the UK government website, around 73,600 weddings and civil ceremonies were postponed after the lockdown was announced in March. In England, up to 15 attendees are allowed (though wedding receptions are banned in Tier 3 areas), while in the US, rules on guest numbers vary by state.
When preparing for these intimate events, many brides have decided against the traditional dress-buying experience, whether that’s commissioning a bespoke gown or visiting a bridal boutique where you are greeted with champagne (or perhaps prosecco) on arrival.
This summer, Christina Macfarlane, CNN’s news and sport anchor, had to change her plans — and her dress. Before the pandemic, Macfarlane had planned a big wedding, but that has been postponed indefinitely. Instead, she had a scaled-down event in Scotland and wanted something flattering that she could wear again afterwards. She snapped up a midi-length puff-sleeve design from party-wear label Rotate Birger Christensen on Instagram.
“The dress cost £220 and was not even labelled as bridal,” she says. “I love Rotate, but I never imagined I would get my wedding dress from there. I also bought a pair of Aquazzura pump heels to go with it — and they cost three times as much as the dress.”
Vogue Scandinavia’s digital editor Natalie Salmon was also forced to be flexible. She had planned a large wedding in Portugal and a registry office ceremony in London, but travel restrictions and changing guidelines meant rearranging dates and decreasing her guest list. She had just two weeks to plan the registry office ceremony and found her dress a mere four days before the event: a fitted white strapless midi with feather trim from eveningwear label 16Arlington (£695).
With bridal and designer boutiques obliged to close during the spring, many brides have had to rethink how they buy their wedding wear. For some online retailers, ready-to-wear bridal categories are swiftly becoming their best-performing and fastest-growing sector. Between April and July this year, Matches Fashion’s buying director Natalie Kingham had to reorder bridal stock to keep up with demand. The most popular dress was Emilia Wickstead’s ivory crepe “Cruz” gown, which features an exaggerated bow (£3,110).
Kingham also noted an increase in sales of “more fashion-forward wedding outfits which could also be used for parties”. The most sought-after items include pieces by Russian designer Vika Gazinskaya (her broderie anglaise crop-top with matching midi-skirt has been a bestseller), Ganni and Copenhagen-based brand Cecilie Bahnsen, known for puffball lace minidresses.
This desire to do things a bit differently is reflected in the clothing rental platforms, too. Georgie Hyatt, co-founder of Rotaro, a rental site, says that her community’s habits have shifted, with a 200 per cent rise in last-minute wedding rentals in the past three months alone. “Our more premium brands, like Cecilie Bahnsen and The Vampire’s Wife, have been popular for our brides,” says Hyatt. “They want to make their micro-celebrations feel special and elevated, with an accessible price tag.”
Even before lockdown, demand for bespoke and specialised bridalwear was under threat. American bridal company Alfred Angelo, which had 60 stores across the US and more than 1,400 wholesale outlets, declared bankruptcy in 2017. The stores closed before brides were able to collect their gowns, including many that had already been paid for. And in November 2018, David’s Bridal, once a market titan with more than 300 stores, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Smaller independent boutiques have also been severely hit by changing tastes and the rise of online wedding-dress sales. Mirror Mirror Couture in north London, which specialises in bespoke and made-to-measure designs (prices start at £6,000), will soon be shutting its doors permanently after 31 years. Over the past two years, it has been unable to compete with companies offering online sales; and, since the pandemic, business has come to a near standstill.
However, at the high end, Oscar de la Renta chief executive Alex Bolen believes that “there is still a demand and need for couture dresses, and women still want fittings. For us it’s all about customer engagement, it’s that special service that only we can provide.”
When Oscar de la Renta reopened its 10 stores in late May, bridal appointments made up the majority of footfall — and still do. Wedding dresses comprise 10-15 per cent of sales at Oscar de la Renta, and although it’s one of their smallest categories, it was their best performing during the summer months.
At Oscar de la Renta ready-to-wear, prices start at $4,000 and go up to around $25,000, and for couture it’s higher still. Bolen says couture requests have continued. “It takes around eight months to make a beautiful couture gown, and the trend I see is women will still want this dress, but they will also buy other dresses too, and often that is our ready-to-wear offering,” says Bolen.
Versatility is also a major selling point. “Brides are definitely choosing multiple looks that you can re-wear after the big day,” says Net-a-Porter’s global buying director Elizabeth von der Goltz. “We have noticed the popularity of adaptable, versatile, easy white dresses in sleek, simple silhouettes — a clear shift away from the more bedazzled and sequinned party dresses. Understated looks for intimate celebrations with family have been key, from 90s-style minimalism at Galvan to clean sleek silhouettes at Michael Lo Sordo.”
Reformation, an LA-based label launched in 2009, is synonymous with affordable, sustainable dresses (from £84-£460) but has become a go-to for brides. Chief executive Hali Borenstein says: “Our original aim was to design a collection that you could actually want to wear more than once — is it necessary to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on an unflattering dress that you’ll wear for one day?”
For Macfarlane, her low-fuss, ready-to-wear option proved something of a wonderful surprise. “Choosing a dress that quickly gave me time to appreciate so many other things about the day. It wasn’t what I had expected, but it ended up being more than I could hope for. When you strip away all the other things that consume you for your wedding, it makes you appreciate why you are really there.”
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