Trends: Wear Again Bridesmaid Dresses

At last! Bridal and formal designers are moving in the right direction with bridesmaid dresses that look great at any elegant affair. It's the bridesmaid dress you will want to wear again and again.

Jim Hjelm Occasions leads our list of favorite bridal and formal designers in the wear again category.

Have a look at a few styles on our website. Proof positive that Jim Hjelm offers smart, sophisticated full length evening dresses that boogie at a dinner dance as well as they waltz up the aisle.

The couture bridesmaid, mother of the bride or best dressed guest who wears Jim Hjelm dresses epitomizes fashionable elegance and has a definite sense of personal style.

Siri San Francisco is our top pick for wear again bridesmaid dresses.

Flattering lines, adorable styles in yummy silk fabrics, Siri tea length bridesmaid dresses can easily sashay past the doorman at a swank hotel for cocktails or a wedding reception with equal flair.

Fashion aside, all Siri dresses are silk - silk chiffon, silk organza, silk shantung, silk, silk, silk. Nothing reeks of class like silk, yet Siri dresses are very affordable.

My last word on Siri bridesmaid dresses: cute, cute, cute!

Who's your favorite designer of wear again bridesmaid dresses? We welcome your comments!

The Princess Bride Tradition

In today's liberal, anything goes, culture, the bride to be may bypass the "old fashioned" modest wedding gown in favor of something trendy and frankly sexy. Consider the origins of the traditional wedding gown in regal pageantry and social distinction, "old fashioned" may never look quite the same.

Along with baptism and burial, marriage is one of the three great public occasions in a woman's life. It is the only one at which she gets to revel unabashedly in the glory of her central role.

For the bride, more than the groom, it is her Big Day, her day in the sun. By extension, the wedding gown has held a unique place in the marriage ceremony.

Throughout history, women have tried to make their bridal dresses special in order to celebrate the importance of the occasion, to make the beautiful bride more beautiful and the not so beautiful at least splendid to look at.

The Princess Bride

In medieval times, when royal marriages were of political importance and used to seal alliances between countries, the royal bride's regalia was designed to signify the prestige of her country, to impress the bridegroom's country with her own nation's apparent wealth and, if possible, outdo anything they could have afforded.

The royal wealth was also displayed in the choice of fabric, its color and style, using as much as possible of the costliest fabrics, spun, woven and dyed especially for this dress.

Wedding gowns of velvet, damask silk, satin or fur woven with gold and silver thread ensured that the princess was at her most majestic.

Colorful fabrics also signified status; dyes for red, blue and pure black were especially precious.

Precious gems - diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and pearls - were woven into the fabric so the bride would glitter and flash in the sunlight. In some cases, the gown would be so thickly encrusted with jewels, that the fabric beneath was hidden.

The Princess Bride wore yards and yards of a gathered and full skirt. Long sleeves swept the floor. Trains extended behind the gown so far, every step the bride took was an effort to drag it along. Thus began the measured cadence of the wedding march.

In its extreme, as far back as the 15th century, this material spectacle resulted in a wedding ensemble so heavy that Princess Margaret of Flanders could not move in her robes and had to be carried into the church by two gentlemen attendants!

Today's princess bride is still resplendent in wedding dresses rich with French lace, alight with seed pearls and crystal sequins or elegant with sheer flowing fingertip sleeves.

The "Celebrity" Knock-Off

Then as now, not many brides were princesses and most women could not afford such expense. But every bride did her best, regardless of social stature, to copy the fashion set by their beloved royals.

A noblewoman would impress her friends and her bridegroom's family with gems and fur, wearing velvet or silk fabrics trimmed in fox or rabbit because she could not usually afford mink or sable.

Even the most common of scullery maids did her best to shine on the day of her wedding.

Rather than the usual coarse homespun she wore every day, the common girl's wedding dress would be of linen, or fine wool, using as much fabric possible.

For her, every day clothes were sparingly cut due to the cost of fabric, so a gown with fingertip sleeves or a flowing train was a big step up in status.

The White Wedding Dress

The "traditional" white wedding gown as we know it today first appeared in the late eighteenth century ushered in by the regal Queen Victoria.

Queen Victoria chose to marry Prince Albert in white silk and Honiton lace instead of silver which was the traditional color of Royal brides. Her example then made white the virtual rule for Victorian brides.

We still see her influence on modern brides in white or ivory wedding gowns ornamented with pearls and lace.

Subsequently, the introduction of machine made fabric and inexpensive muslins imported from India, in styles inspired by the classical world, put the traditional white wedding dress and veil within the reach of every woman.

The Traditional Bridal Dress in Modern Times

While styles have changed through the years, and our beloved royals now marry presidents and rock stars, the essentials of this wedding dress remain the same.

It was, and is a full length gown in white or an ivory shade of white, often boasting precious French lace with yards and yards of skirt and a flowing train.

The traditional wedding gown is richly beaded and embroidered to reflect both sunlight and candlelight, yet is styled more modestly than the most daring fashions of the day.

Whether it has short cap sleeves or long fingertip illusion sleeves, it most certainly has a train.

With the traditional wedding gown, we hear the echo of centuries gone by when a royal princess was her most princess-like on her wedding day and every commoner did her uncommon best to shine most brightly as a princess bride on her day in the sun.

Vera Wang Glamorizes Bridal Fashion 2009

According to Fashion World Daily, Vera Wang's Spring 2009 bridal collection, which she presented in her showroom in New York on Thursday, April 17, started with Hollywood glamour of the 1930s through the 1950s of silver screen sirens such as Jean Harlow, Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe and Ava Gardner.

Details like pleated organza ruffles or floral corsages on one shoulder, fractal-like spiraling hand-cut floral trains, hand-pleating or asymmetrically draped necklines and asymmetrically placed bows literally put a twist on the traditional bridal silhouettes, adding dramatic points of focus. Exquisitely rendered, these elements exuded not only luxury but also gave the dresses a modern sophistication that only good design can impart.

"We want to modernize the wedding vocabulary," said Wang post-show. "It's something we struggle with every season."

After five years' marketing sample wedding gowns by top designers to bargain savvy brides, I have my own take on Vera Wang.

I envision an army of assistant designers styling Vera Wang wedding dresses and maids gowns for her approval.

Vera marches in like the Queen of Hearts (or Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada,") looks the design up and down and immediately changes anything that has been "done" before.

"Change this."

"I don't like that."

"Move this here."

How else can you explain a wedding dress with seams inside out (done by Sonja Rykiel in the 70's BTW?) Or a frothy confection like the one above on which asymmetric tiers of bobinette tulle appear to collide?

Still nothing exceeds like excess and the results are undeniably distinctive.

Vera Wang's wedding gowns are among the most sought after for fashion-forward brides, where thoughtful, inventive design combined with luxurious fabrics and finishings extend the gown beyond the realm of mere canvas for traditional embellishments like sequins or beading. Instead, a Vera Wang gown takes ornamentation away from the mode of simple decoration, integrating the ornamental into the blueprint and structure of the dress - a true work of art. It becomes a part of the architecture of the gown as much as it is the focal point.

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See Vera Wang Maids in Scarlett's Closet Sample Sale.


What's your take on Vera Wang? We welcome your comments!

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.