WHITE CARPET

Every season, the bridal designers debut their latest collections in New York. There are numerous designers, but from those, there are a select few whose collections are always eagerly anticipated, much sought after by brides, and often imitated by their competitors. These are profiles of the top seven most influential bridal gown designers.

Priscilla of Boston: The First Famous Bridal Gown Designer

The Priscilla of Boston bridal gown collection is by far the oldest house among the most influential wedding designers. Founded in 1945 by Priscilla Kidder as “The Bride’s Shop” in Newbury Street  (Boston), the company that was to become Priscilla of Boston gained a reputation for both the quality of its service and its wedding gowns. The gowns were made by hand in a factory in Charlestown, Massachusetts in the greater Boston area. Many of the firm’s wedding dresses are still made in the original factory, and it is possible to tour the facilities and watch a gown being assembled or the beaders handbeading a piece of lace with Swarovski crystals and pearls.

By the 1950s, Priscilla of Boston gowns were the gold standard for brides with discerning taste, and they were carried in the top name department stores. The gowns were famous for their exquisite silks, hand beadwork, and French laces. Alençon, Chantilly, and Lyon laces were some of the preferred trimmings for Priscilla Kidder’s bridal gowns. In 1956, Kidder was granted the honor of designing the bridesmaid dresses for the wedding of Grace Kelly, and other high profile weddings would soon follow. In a span of six years, three Presidential daughters walked down the aisle in Priscilla of Boston gowns: Luci Johnson (1965), Julie Nixon (1968), and Tricia Nixon (1971).

In one way, Priscilla of Boston was to influence every bridal designer who was to follow in her footsteps: she was the first to promote her name and brand as a status symbol. There could be no Vera Wang had there not first been a Priscilla Kidder. The founder retired at the age of 75 in 1993, but the company continued to create designs in the same Charlestown factory. The 2000s brought many changes to the venerable old firm, including the sale of Priscilla of Boston to the May Company in 2002, the death of Priscilla Kidder in 2004, the 2005 acquisition of bridal designer Melissa Sweet, and expansion into sister lines Platinum by Priscilla, Vineyard, and Jewel. The goal of the Priscilla of Boston collection of brands is to meet the needs of every type of bride, from the traditional, to the ultra luxurious, the modern, and the eclectic. There can be no doubt about the influential nature of this updated bridal powerhouse.

Vera Wang Revolutionizes Wedding Gowns

There is no woman who has had a greater impact on modern American weddings than Vera Wang. Her wedding gowns are among the most trendsetting in the bridal industry.

The story of how Vera Wang got her start as a bridal gown designer is legendary. When she was planning her 1989 wedding, she was dismayed to find nothing but overblown “princess style” bridal gowns. Wang came to realize that there was a serious disconnect between bridal and high fashion, and set out to change that. And she did! After Vera Wang opened her first bridal salon in New York in 1990, the bridal gown industry was transformed from one that was stuck in the past to one that is relevant and inspirational to both the modern bride and the larger fashion industry as a whole.

Plenty of brides have had a difficult time finding the wedding gown of their dreams, but very few are able to turn a frustrating experience into a global enterprise. Vera Wang was uniquely positioned to achieve this level of success. Born on June 27, 1949 in New York to wealthy Chinese parents, Wang attended elite schools (The Chapin School, Sarah Lawrence College, and the Sorbonne in Paris). Her early passion was figure skating, but when she was not chosen for the U.S. Olympic team, she decided to pursue one of her other lifelong passions: fashion.

Wang spent sixteen years as a fashion editor at Vogue before departing to work at Ralph Lauren in 1985. By the time of Wang’s wedding in 1989, she had all the tools in place to launch the bridal line that would become synonymous with luxury, modern elegance, and high fashion. Vera had years of training in the fashion industry, connections within both fashion and upper crust society, and a keen eye for style. From the bridal collection’s 1990 debut, the Vera Wang label quickly became the go-to wedding gown brand for the rich and famous, as well as for the regular bride who values top design. Celebrity clients include Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson, Mariah Carey, Karenna Gore, Victoria Beckham, Sharon Stone, Kate Hudson, and many more.

Vera Wang branched out from the bridal industry into designing other special occasion gowns, eventually evolving into a full lifestyle brand with products ranging from ready wear clothing, housewares, fragrance, wedding stationery, and fine jewelry. Wang’s signature style is modern, trendsetting, sophisticated, and whimsical. Her philosophy is that brides fall into five general categories: traditionalist, modernist, individualist, romanticist, and minimalist; Wang’s intention is to design the perfect bridal gown for each of these types of women, and if her international popularity is any guideline, she has certainly achieved her goal!

The Forever Modern Style of Amsale

Vera Wang is not the only high profile bridal designer who got her start due to the lack of selection when she planned her own wedding. Amsale Aberra, who was born in Ethiopia, had a very similar experience. Amsale grew up in Ethiopia, which she left to attend college in Massachusetts. Her focus at the time was commercial art; Aberra later said that while a child in Ethopia, she did not know that there was such a career as fashion designer. It was while in college that Amsale became interested in designing clothing; it all began when she started to sew her own clothing to save money. What was born of necessity turned into a passion, and Amsale moved to New York to attend the famous Fashion Institute of Technology.

When Amsale began shopping for a gown for her 1985 wedding, like Wang, she was turned off by the lack of sophistication in the gowns on the market. Shortly after her wedding, the newlywed decided to take matters into her own hands and remedy the situation. Amsale rightly believed that there were other brides out there who desired the same understated elegance that she had sought in a bridal gown. Amsale’s bridal business began with an ad in the newspaper for custom made bridal gowns, which she designed and had made by a small team of talented seamstresses. From the beginning, fine fabrics and quality craftsmanship were trademarks of Amsale’s wedding gowns, and the company that began in her New York City loft apartment eventually grew to be featured in the country’s most luxurious department stores and bridal salons.

The style of an Amsale gown is described as “Forever Modern”, by which the designer means that she works with traditional wedding dress features, but with an eye to creating modern classics. Amsale’s gowns are updated and sophisticated with clean lines. One of her most famous designs is a simple white silk strapless wedding gown with a blue sash. The style, though simple, was revolutionary, and it became a smash hit that has been imitated by countless bridal gown designers since.

Monique Lhuillier’s Gowns Hit The Red Carpet And The Church Aisle

Thank for the lack of chic wedding gowns in the 1980s and early 1990s, for yet another of the most influential bridal designers launched her collection from the same frustrating circumstances as Vera Wang and Amsale. The cutting edge collection of Monique Lhuillier was founded in 1996, fresh off of her disappointment with the bridal gowns on the market when she planned her wedding. The gowns for which Lhuillier has become world famous came about when the 23 year old decided that there were simply not enough choices for the stylish modern bride.

Born in the Phillipines in 1971, Monique Lhuillier’s prominent family sent her to a Swiss boarding school, followed by an education at Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. Following her frustrating experiences during her own wedding, Lhuillier set to create the types of gowns which she wanted for herself. Monique Lhuillier’s gowns are best known for her ability to blend classic bride materials, especially lace, with fashion forward styles. Her iconic looks walk the line between sexy and bridal, which has made them a hit with celebrities (she also now designs red carpet gowns in addition to the bridal collection). Some of the famous brides to wear a Monique Lhuillier gown include Britney Spears and Al Gore’s daughter Sarah. If you are interested in stars’ dresses and Lhuillier click here.

Reem Acra’s Bridal Gowns Are Fit For Royalty

When brides are looking for opulent royal gowns for their weddings, they turn to the intricately embroidered creations of designer Reem Acra. Originally discovered by a fashion editor while a student at the American University in Lebanon, the young Lebanese woman showed her first collection only 10 days later. This happy turn of events led to Acra’s decision to pursue a career in fashion; she studied in Paris and later at F.I.T. in New York. The dress that originally drew the fashion editor’s eye was one that Reem Acra had created out of an piece of ornately embroidered silk organza; this sort of lavish embellishment was to become the hallmark of her bridal gown collection.

Reem Acra’s bridal line was launched in 1997. Her career took off when one of her friends wore a Reem Acra bridal gown for her high profile society wedding. It was not long before brides around the world were flocking to the label for opulent, exquisite wedding dresses. Unlike some of the other top bridal designers whose focus is on modern simplicity, Acra’s gowns are unabashedly embellished. She is known for her remarkable metallic embroidery and intricate beadwork in Swarovski crystals and seed pearls. A Reem Acra wedding gown is formal, glamorous, and sophisticated, with a signature style that invokes royalty. Indeed, royal brides have chosen Acra’s European inspired styles for their wedding days. In addition to wedding gowns, Acra also designs gowns for celebrities to wear at premieres and award shows. Her red carpet-worthy creations have been worn by some of Hollywood’s most beautiful and glamorous women, including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry, Beyoncè Knowles and others.

Carolina Herrera Has Been Dressing Brides, Debutantes, And Celebrities For 30 Years

Have a look on my post dedicated to Carolina Herrera.

Oscar de la Renta’s Wedding Gowns Epitomize Luxury

The only man on the list of the most influential wedding gown designers, Oscar De La Renta originally hails from the Dominican Republic. Born in 1932, Oscar de la Renta’s fan base includes many of the same celebrities and wealthy clientele as Carolina Herrera’s label. Like Herrera, the bridal collection is a part of a larger lifestyle collection encompassing formal attire, day wear, and accessories. An art lover, Oscar de la Renta moved to Spain to study painting at the age of 18. It was not long before he changed his focus to fashion, obtaining an apprenticeship with the legendary Spanish couturier Balenciaga (it is an interesting coincidence that Balenciaga was Herrera’s first couture show; perhaps it is no accident that de la Renta and Herrera share some similar design aesthetics). De la Renta’s next step was a move to Paris, where he worked for Lanvin, Elizabeth Arden, and Dior before finally starting his own label in 1965.

Oscar de la Renta’s bridal gowns are defined by their couture craftsmanship, femininity, charm, and attention to detail. He is the epitome of luxury and elegance in bridal fashion. Not unlike Carolina Herrera, Oscar de la Renta wedding gowns are often strapless with classic silhouettes. He makes great use of embroidered organzas and laces, as well as flounces and ruffles with a touch of Latin flair. Former President Bush’s daughter Jenna was one of the best known brides to wear an Oscar de la Renta gown for her wedding. The fairly simple lace gown, while beautiful, was actually a bit more informal than a signature de la Renta wedding dress.

“Herrera is unassailable proof that class and poise depend less on what you have on – or what you move into – than on how you behave.” (Hal Ruben)

How was a world-known designer born?

Herrera is the scion of an old South American family. She was born on another  planet, the world of the traditional Latin American aristocracy. Born Maria Carolina Josefina Pacanins y Nino in Venezuela’s capital city of Caracas on January 8, 1939, she was one of four daughters in a family whose roots on the continent stretched back to the 1500s. Her father, an aviation pioneer, served as governor of Caracas and was twice the country’s foreign affairs minister. Herrera’s mother and grandmother were chic women who regularly traveled to Paris to have their clothes made at the great design houses of Balenciaga and Lanvin.

She grew up in a very organized house. There was a right way of doing everything. “My mother believed you had to be cultivated,” Herrera told in an interview in 1997. “Having an inner life was very important to her. She told her four daughters, ‘Beauty is the first thing to go. If you don’t have anything inside you, you are going to be so lonely.’ ”

Herrera was married at the age of 18 to a young man from an affluent Venezuelan family, but the marriage ended after less than a decade. She moved back into her parents’ home with her little girls and for a time worked in Caracas as a publicist for Emilio Pucci, the Italian designer. Soon she started an affair with Reinaldo Herrera and after their marriage the couple traveled in social circles that included Princess Margaret of Great Britain and New York artist Andy Warhol. When in Caracas, they lived with their two daughters and her two daughters from her first marriage at the 65-room Herrera family estate, La Vega, built in 1590 and thought to be the oldest continually inhabited house in the Western Hemisphere.

In her thirties, Herrera began to appear regularly on the International Best Dressed lists, and in 1980 she and her husband moved to New York with the children. Nearing 40, she considered trying some sort of fashion-related business venture and thought about fabric design. A longtime friend, fashion publicist Count Rudi Crespi, suggested that she do an entire line of clothing instead. Herrera had little business sense and had collected paychecks only during her stint at Pucci.

In the fall of 1980, Herrera brought to New York about 20 dresses her dressmaker had made for her in Caracas. She borrowed the Park Avenue apartment of an acquaintance and invited her friends and acquaintances to see them. Soon, buyers for some of New York’s upscale fashion retailers arrived and wanted to take the entire line, but Herrera had no company and no way of putting a production deal together. Back in Caracas, she met publishing tycoon Armando deArmas, who offered to “cover” her, and within a few months a design atelier and showroom, Carolina Herrera Ltd., opened on New York’s Seventh Avenue in the fashion industry’s heart. Her first full collection was shown at New York’s Metropolitan Club in April 1981.

Herrera’s business started small, with just a dozen employees, but soon grew rapidly. The socialites who knew her became some of her first devoted customers, and women like cosmetics’ hicon Estee Lauder and former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis became clients. The fashion trade journals were not always complimentary, however.

Some of the hallmarks of Herrera’s clothing found their way into the more mainstream fashions of the 1980s. She was one of the first to use padded shoulders, believing that broader shoulders made a woman’s waist appear smaller, and she loved elaborate sleeves as well.

When she began designing in the early 1980s, Herrera told National Review interviewers John O. Sullivan and John Simon, “the whole fashion world was going mad on layer after layer of very loose skirts and free blouses – and no shapes. I came out with a collection that was all fitted.” Her big sleeves were novel for the day, and Herrera recalled that “Everyone asked me: ‘Why big sleeves?’ I replied: ‘Well, they are not that new. They have been a fashion feature from Elizabethan times, or even the Middle Ages, up to the Gibson Girls.’ All I did was to adapt them to modern times. They were successful because women liked these big sleeves framing their faces.”

Herrera’s company enjoyed even stronger sales after she designed the wedding dress for Caroline Kennedy in 1986. It made her a household name overnight across North America, and the ultra-feminine goen was quickly copied.

Soon Herrera’s business expanded to include not just her “pret-a-porte” or designer line and the made-to-order items for women like Onassis, but bridal wear and a lower-priced line named CH. Lucrative licensing agreements for accessories, costume jewelry, and eyewear boosted the fortunes of her company even further. By 1990, after a decade in business, its wholesale figures reached $20 million. She celebrated by opening a new, luxurious showroom on Seventh Avenue.

Herrera contracted with Puig, a Spanish cosmetics company, to produce her fragrance line, which became a tremendous success; she even created a top-selling men’s scent, Herrera for Men, in 1991, and regularly added new women’s products to the line.

Her empire continued to expand, and in 1994 the partnership with Armas ended when he sold his share to Puig. In 2000, Herrera opened her first store, located at Madison Avenue and 75th Street in Manhattan, and looked forward to expanding her business further into Europe. Within two years, she had opened her first collection boutique outside of New York, a boite located in Madrid’s upscale Salamanca district.

Focusing on Carolina’s work for brides…

Herrera expanded her scope to bridal wear in 1987, putting her ow signature on wedding gowns much to the delight of critics and celebrities alike.

Herrera’s bridal designs also won Bride magazine’s “First prize of design of bridal gowns”. Her work was forever immortalized in the 2005 release of Carolina Herrera bride barbie doll, the same year she opened a bridal salon on the third floor of the Madison Avenue Boutique.

Carolina’s approach to wedding fashions is similar to her overall designs philosophy.

“I like simplicity–clean lines, touches of embroidery or lace. Not a lot of details. Definitely not ruffles and flowers everywhere. I try to be sophisticated and elegant at the same time. I like a bride with a long train and long tulle veil, with a blusher … the tradition of it is so pretty,” she says.

HERRERA IS ACTUALLY COUNTED AS ONE OF THE 7 MOST INFLUENTIAL BRIDAL GOWN DESIGNERS

“Fashion in the past meant that you had to have the guts to wear something different from others – to express your individual personality – but within the constraints set by formal standards of elegance and style,” she mused in the National Reviewinterview. “Today, people want to be free to wear what they like, in any combination they like, to be confined by no rules, and to set their own standards – yet they all end up looking exactly the same.”

“I have an eye for proportion, which is always the key to looking great, for mixing fabrics, and for shape, don’t ask me to cut or sew. I can’t do that. But I know exactly how a shoulder should lie.”

“The more you listen the more confused you get. You can’t design to please the press and to be in fashion.”

“The moment I leave my office I draw a curtain on my work, because you know what is really boring? When you work and work and then work some more, and you don’t realize it, but work is all you talk about all the time. Many designers have that problem. Work should be an important part of your life. But for it to be your life? That is very sad.”

(Carolina Herrera)