It’s Now a Party Dress, Not a Uniform

It used to be that being a bridesmaid was an honor requiring loyalty, friendship, patience and the willingness to wear a clownish taffeta dress that could have been a hit only at a 1980s prom. 

“There are people who mine the ’80s for inspiration, but they probably didn’t live through it,” said the ready-to-wear and bridal designer Lela Rose, chuckling.

“It was just bad,” she added, referring to the exaggerated shapes and stiff textiles. “Taffeta to me always said ‘bridesmaid.’ It’s really any fabric that makes that sound when you walk: ‘tsh tsh.’ ”

Bridesmaids today have it significantly better. The niche has spawned sophisticated collections offering attractive, rewearable designs that can occasionally usurp even the bride. Particularly, designers have given wedding parties flexibility in materials, cut and color.

Angela Craig, 29, is a nine-time bridesmaid (she calls her wedding party duties “like a second career”).

“I’ve had some really hideous bridesmaid dresses,” she said, remembering an “ugly cranberry dress, floor-length, made of cheap fake silk.” (Reality television buffs might tune in to TLC’s “Say Yes to the Dress,” which features a bridesmaid spinoff with episode titles like “I’m Terrified of This Dress.”)

Ms. Craig, a senior strategist at Redscout, a marketing consultancy in New York, said she was luckier in the most recent wedding, last month in Chicago. The bride was adamant about no taffeta for her wedding party. Ms. Craig and the bride had visited several stores in Chicago, trying on about 15 dresses. Ms. Craig said she was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the fabrics.

Eventually, the party agreed on an empire-waist knee-length plum-colored chiffon frock by Donna Morgan ($178, found in Nordstrom’s wedding section).

“Most of us are fit, so we could do the strapless sweetheart neckline, and the chiffon was really good for the price,” she said, while the empire waist was for a bridesmaid who was pregnant.

Fabrics that drape are flattering for many women, said Ms. Rose, who also uses chiffon in her bridesmaid collection, which she introduced shortly after her bridal-line debut in fall 2006. She partnered with the Dessy Group to produce the designs, with details borrowed from her ready-to-wear and wedding gowns, some with upscale fabrications like silk gazar. The designs are “very individualized,” she said.

“Often there is one detail that brings them all together,” she said, but women can choose among different cuts to suit their body shape but in the same color.

That very-uniform look is not very modern, Ms. Rose said: “Some girls look great in anything, but not everyone does. Bridesmaids are part of your pictures, so why wouldn’t you want them to look great?”

Her bridesmaid collection is now carried at retailers and on social wedding-shopping sites like WeddingtonWay.com, which was started in 2011 in San Francisco. The site’s founder, Ilana Stern, a former buyer at Bloomingdale’s, came up with the business plan while attending Stanford’s M.B.A. program. A lot of her fellow students were marrying or were part of wedding parties, said Ms. Stern, 30.

“People were pouring a lot of time and money into these weddings, but they were complaining a lot,” she said. One of the biggest headaches for brides, she said, was outfitting their bridesmaids. “I know there are jokes out there about bridesmaid dresses, but I didn’t realize brides found it so difficult,” Ms. Stern said.

The process is a balancing act: keeping bridesmaids happy while accomplishing a certain cohesive aesthetic, she said. (“There’s nothing worse than an angry bridesmaid who hates what’s she’s wearing and secretly thinks the bride had it in for her,” Ms. Rose said.)

Weddington Way’s site links members of wedding parties, offering bridesmaids and groomsmen fashion options to discuss online or to buy. Ms. Stern is now planning her own wedding, for August at the Bel-Air Bay Club in Pacific Palisades, Calif. It will have a beach boho theme and 11 bridesmaids with varying body shapes.

(Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/fashion/weddings/whats-new-in-bridesmaid-dresses.html?pagewanted=all)

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