There are many terms discussed in the wedding industry designed to both ease the pain and heighten the excitement as we say goodbye to our money. ‘Tailor-Made’, ‘Sew Made’ and ‘Designer Dress’ are three of the most common.
Most of us probably have a pretty good idea of what they mean, but taking a look at what they don’t mean will help us arrive at a more precise definition.
There aren’t many bridal shops that don’t use the term “designer” somewhere in the description of the dress they present to us. All the things we use in this life have a designer. Even a paper coffee cup had to be designed by someone. Try to convince the average shopper that the paper cup is a ‘designer’ cup worth ten times as much as a regular paper cup and you might run into some trouble.
However, that is exactly what is happening in the case of many of the ‘designer’ labels we see on our high streets, as well as the designer wedding dresses we talked about at the beginning. Mass-produced dresses made (and often designed) in the Far East are presented to us in this way. I don’t know about you, but this to me, seems to undermine the whole ‘designer dress’ ethos. Why pay more if it’s nothing more than a mass produced clone?
So what makes a true ‘designer dress’?
First, there has to be a unique element to the design. It’s true that high prices are in themselves a way of making a dress more exclusive, but there has to be more to it than that.
What about the dresses that adorn the red carpets of Hollywood and the latest fashion shows? What makes them a designer dress?
The answer to that is individuality. Most of these dresses have been drawn by a designer and then made by a small, elite team of seamstresses, working to the actual measurements of the movie star or model.
This is often a ‘tailor-made’ dress in the true meaning of the word, that is, a ‘one-of-a-kind’ garment made for the individual.
In recent years, the word ‘haute couture’ has become a garment made to a high standard accepted by an expert designer and sewing team. Originally, the term could only be used in certain regions of France. Even today, the term ‘Haute Couture’ can only be used to refer to ten current fashion houses based in Paris and three other corresponding fashion houses.
Is it possible to buy custom made and made to measure designer wedding dresses in the UK? Yes, of course, but you have to look for them. Many designers have “sold out” to some degree to the huge Chinese-based wedding dress factories, and who can blame them?
In the wedding trade, it’s quite common for a wedding dress ‘designer’ to walk into a Chinese design room, choose from a variety of fabrics, bodice patterns, embroidery styles, required sizes, and then leave it to their heart’s content. The factory underwrites the fabric required for a reasonable number of dresses and labels them for the ‘designer’.
In fairness to the Chinese manufacturers, the quality is usually excellent, but in the fullest sense of the term “haute couture” they don’t qualify and you’ll typically order a dress in roughly your dress size which will then be altered to fit you. They are certainly not ‘tailor made’ dresses.
To be sure you’re really buying a custom-made, couture wedding dress, even by a respected designer, it’s best to ask if it will be made at the designer’s own facility.
You should expect to visit the store or design studio on more than one occasion, as it is customary for a canvas (calico mockup) of the dress to be measured to ensure a perfect fit. At least another two or three visits will be necessary.
Usually (but not always) if a dress is ready when you arrive for your first fitting, it isn’t. do not repeat a custom dress
If you choose an existing model and order it in your size, it may be a haute couture dress, made to measure, but it is not a made-to-measure dress.
In conclusion, probably the easiest way to express the type of wedding dresses that are available to the UK bride is to summarize the three basic groups: ready-to-wear (off-the-shelf) wedding dresses, made-to-measure wedding dresses (often altered to your size from an existing style) and custom-made wedding dresses (these are one-of-a-kind dresses made to fit you perfectly).
When all is said and done, the most important thing is that you are happy with the dress you choose, just keep in mind that some bridal shops claim that their dresses are something they are not.
