Silk or synthetic: what's the best fabric for my wedding dress?

Silk or synthetic, which fabric is best for your wedding dress? It depends on how you define "the best."

If you're into the most expensive, then silk by all means is Queen. Silk fiber is made from silkworm cocoons and woven to create various fabrics distinguished by a characteristic look and feel. There is nothing in the world like the feel of silk on bare skin.

If you're into the best bang for the buck , then go for a fabric woven of synthetic fiber. Rayon, polyester, nylon or acetate fiber is woven into bridal fabrics that both mimic silk and create their own brand of luxury. Nothing compares to the sound of taffeta as it sweeps up the chapel aisle.

I believe that the bride who turns her nose up at a wedding dress she loves because it is polyester is making a mistake.

Princess Diana was wed to Prince Charles of England in a silk taffeta princess a-line wedding dress with a 25 foot train.

David Emanuel, who designed the French meringue of a dress, complained in a TV interview that the carriage was far too small for both Diana and her robustly built father along with her full skirted dress. Her skirt was a wrinkled mass when she arrived at St. Paul's Cathedral.

Fortunately the designer was on hand to smooth out the worst of it before she commenced her walk up the aisle. After the ceremony, the creases in her skirt had to be smoothed yet again before she posed for wedding pictures.

The lesson is: even real princesses fall prey to the mystique of silk over synthetic and pay the price.

All bridal designers, from Amsale to Vera Wang, may style a wedding dress or bridesmaid gown in synthetic fabric. All satin used in bridal and formal gowns is synthetic. Duchess satin is a blend of synthetic and silk fiber. It's more affordable. It holds its shape better. It's easier to keep clean. And it wrinkles less.

The grade of synthetic fabric a designer uses makes the difference.

A better quality weave looks and feels exactly like silk. In fact, the only way we can tell them apart - and you will find both silk and polyester wedding dresses in Scarlett's Closet - is to find the fabric content on the manufacturer's care tag.

So don't dismiss a dress you love because it's made of a synthetic fabric. If the fabric feels thick, stiff and cheesy, then move up to a better quality. But if the fabric is lustrous, holds it shape when you move and drapes on your body like a dream, who cares? Silk or synthetic, in the hands of a great designer, they offer equal, but different, appeal.

More about the fabrics used in designer wedding dresses in our Fabric Glossary.