Shopping for a wedding dress isn’t the same as it might have been five years ago. Recent reports suggest that brides are choosing to spend less money on a dress (and even rings) in a bid to focus their financial efforts elsewhere – on say, buying a house, or starting a family.
In fact, search engine Lyst predicts that this year brides will be spending an average of £832 on a wedding dress, although a larger survey of 5,000 brides by Bridebook suggested the figure may be higher at £1,385. And so enter Topshop, ASOS and brands like Whistles and Ted Baker, who are bringing a new, more affordable type of wedding dress into an arena that used to be fairly straight-forward: pay out for quality, or don’t.
Many people lambast the bridal industry for inflated prices and outrageously expensive wedding dresses, but I've always been of the belief that quality costs money. Well, until a recent trip to a bridal boutique taught me that everything may not be exactly as simple it seems.
“You see that brand over there?", the assistant asked me, "You’d look gorgeous on the day, but after a year, the dress would start to disintegrate in your wardrobe”. “But that dress costs £8,000?!” I replied. “Yes”, she laughed, while continuing to explain to me that there are certain designers out there charging astronomical prices for couture dresses, when they're actually being created with glue guns in China.
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"The perception that brands give on Instagram is luxury but the actual product is not"
Not all wedding dresses are made equal, it would seem.
Wedding dress designer Hayley Paige prides herself on the quality of her brand, hand-sewing her gorgeous gowns in New York.
“It’s very interesting what’s happening right now in the market”, Hayley explained to me later over the phone. “It used to be very black and white for me, either your dress was made in China and you’re selling a very low-end product, or your dresses are made in a couture house or in New York City and they’re quality and you have a higher price point.”
Australian luxury bridal brand, Grace Loves Lace, recognises the problem, too. "I don't think it's new to the industry", founder Megan Ziems told us. "When I started GLL in 2010, one of the main points of difference I wanted to have was quality laces and silks, in-house design and in-house production and then making them accessible to women worldwide at ethical price points.
"We know who does and doesn't manufacture and design in-house, but it can often get hidden very easily. Every brand has its own priorities and values which is fine."
The problem now, Hayley explains, is the power of social media and branding as a tool to distract the consumer from the most important issue – the quality.
“The dilution in design is becoming harder to tell, because the knock-offs are getting better - the perception that brands give in their ad campaigns and Instagram is luxury, but then the actual product is not.”
Rather more worryingly, the dresses that we see on social media or on the runway, are not always the same finished products that we’d receive after we place an order.
Hayley says: “I even know brands that will photograph their dresses in silk and in high quality and put a lot of investment into the quality of photography, but then they’ll sell their dresses in polyester and glue designs on. And it’s so crazy that they’re able to do that.
“Maybe they’re not thinking about returns or maybe they just don’t think that there’s conviction in the customer anymore - that the customer can’t tell. I don’t know what that is, but it’s definitely becoming more prevalent.”
Grace Loves Lace's Megan adds: "It's a shame. We see it a lot and unfortunately I don't think the consumers are realising it. At the end of the day we stay in our own lane and do our own thing and we stay true to what we know we do well and that is always lead by quality and ethical business."
But should the onus necessarily always be on the customer to be able to tell the difference between genuine couture and manufactured knock-offs? While educating the customer is an essential part of the process (we’ll get to that in a minute), there’s also a responsibility that lies with the individual sales team at the stores to do what is in the customer’s best interests.
I was lucky that the first store I visited had honest staff who wanted me to buy a quality dress with an appropriate price tag, rather than throw thousands at a design that fell short. But as Hayley explains, there’s potentially an interesting reason that the majority of sales teams avoid speaking out.
“Their motivation is that they get commission on selling a dress and ultimately they want to go with a dress that they know they can make a sale on.
“But... maybe there’s an incentive the designers are giving, you know 'if you sell our dresses to people then we’ll send a $150 American Express card, or something'. Even if the product that they’re selling is not very good, they still want that gift card and they’ll be more incentivised to sell that dress.”
While we're sure this practice doesn't go on in every bridal store, it might be wise to pay close attention during your appointment for any heavy sales tactics. At Les Trois Soeurs, for example, my sales assistant started by choosing styles for me to try within my budget but listened to my feedback at every turn, allowing me to change direction and designer whenever I wanted.
Ultimately, Hayley believes in quality products. To her, every minute of time spent beading a dress (just the top on some of her dresses can take three weeks), every one one of the dedicated four-person team hand-sewing the details, as well as her the investment in custom embroidery and materials, is worth the price tag that she puts on the dresses.
So, what can you do to make sure you’re not paying over-the-odds for a wedding dress? Hayley gives the following advice:
1. Touch – “Fabrics that are not of quality can often feel like tissue”, Hayley says. So don’t be afraid to really get a feel for the dress you’re trying on.
2. See – One of the biggest giveaways of cheap lace or polyester blend material is how it “drastically changes colour in the light," Hayley remarks. "They also tend to photograph with a hint of a blue, or a green or a yellow undertone”. So, take the dress and hold it up by the window, or ask the sales assistant if you can take a picture (even if you delete it in front of them after). If all else fails, shine a torch light from your phone on the material and see what happens.
3. Try – Ok so you can’t exactly walk out of the store and pretend like you’re getting married, but you can ask to do a few simple manoeuvres in the dress, like sitting down, to see how the material will change. “If you’re sitting during your ceremony and then you stand up, a lot of these cheaper fabrics will literally get pulls in the fabric or wrinkles that just won’t come out”, Hayley says. “So, if you’ve sat for the first half of your wedding and then you’re standing up and taking pictures, you’re going to have all these wrinkles in the dress that you can’t get out.”
4. Check – the details, because this is usually where you’ll be able to find the real deal from the imposters. Hayley explains: “Some designers use a glue gun to glue on their rhinestones and honestly that you can just tell by looking at it, because you can actually see the glue marks or you can actually pick the rhinestone off, and that’s obviously not cool.” And the real deal? “A couture version would be sewn on with brackets.”
5. Look – underneath all of the fuss. According to Hayley, the underneath of the dress – the construction, the structure, the seaming of the layering and all that goes with it is just as important as the fancy detail on the top and it should have been given the same attention to detail. If you notice any flaws or cut corners, this might be an indicator as to the general quality of the gown.
6. Ask - Megan from Grace Loves Lace adds that the most important thing to do if you're worrying at all about where your dress will be made, is to ask. "Generally if a brand is not telling you about their in-house manufacturing, then it probably means they manufacture off shore / mass produce", she says. "The difference is huge from the quality of design and fabrics used, the nature of the fit, the knowledge of design and garment construction."
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