inMagazine.com.hk

By Francesca Fearon

Wedding Gowns Online
It is difficult to imagine what life was like before the Internet, especially shopping. Nowadays we can buy our groceries online, download our music, book holidays and even purchase our clothes.

The latter is a welcome development – trying on clothes in the comfort of our home is much more appealing than a shop fitting room and much less stressful. Since the dotcom boom of the late 1990s the Internet has reached into every corner of our wardrobe selling us everything from lingerie, to fashion and beachwear and it’s now stretching its influence into wedding dresses.

Four years ago it seemed quite shocking that we could buy an engagement ring or a wedding band online, but such are the pressures on time-starved working brides in the modern world that wedding dresses were bound to follow. When you have cakes to order, guest lists to compile and a venue to organise, the time-pressed bride is left with barely a spare moment to consider what personally is the most important ingredient of her wedding, the dress. Spending hours trekking around the stores trying on countless dresses, ordering and then scheduling three fittings needs a year of planning and quite frankly takes too long.

So the Internet is there to help. A number of online bridal boutiques are starting to open up and generally are aimed at the budget customer. By far the classiest to enter the bridal market however is Net-a-Porter. The British-based luxury fashion website founded by Natalie Massenet 10 years ago, decided to introduce a bridal boutique earlier this year. “The idea for the Wedding Boutique grew out of the phenomenal response we had to the ‘Carrie’ dress by Vivienne Westwood from the Sex and the City movie,” says Holli Rogers, Net-a-Porter’s buying director. “We sold a version of this on the site to incredible fervour.” The e-tailer quickly realised that there are lots of women around the world looking for an alternative to traditional custom-made dresses. Women, who Holli describes as “too busy or too spontaneous to attend numerous appointments and fittings,” seem to be flocking to the website, in the four months since the launch. The response has been “overwhelming,” much to their delight.

Net-a-Porter’s aim is to provide an alternative. You would not find traditional bridal ranges in their mix, the collections are drawn from the designers who regularly supply them with high fashion such as Lanvin, Marchesa, Matthew Williamson, Alberta Ferretti and 3.1 Phillip Lim, giving wedding dresses a high fashion spin. When the online boutique launched, Net-a-Porter commissioned exclusive gowns from 3.1 Phillip Lim, Richard Nicoll and La Petite S***** . They recently added exclusives from Diane Von Furstenberg, Erdem, who for once has foregone his famous prints for minimalist white, and last month (June) Matthew Williamson. “A long white dress with a veil is no longer the only option,” says Holli Rogers.

Lanvin Blanche, a capsule bridal collection for the “runaway’ bride was introduced by Alber Elbaz a couple of years ago. This collection, which has a lot of charm, is a little tongue-in-cheek. The look is anything but traditional with the emphasis on short cute dresses, with crusty ruffles, or a one-shouldered style with flowered paillettes. There are long dresses with feathers for the romantic but many other styles break the rules of conformity for a bride on her wedding day. “I didn’t want a bride to look like Cinderella – what happens if you are 40 or getting married in a garden or in Bali?” Elbaz asked when he launched the line.
This collection has been particularly popular says Rogers, but alternative gowns from Marchesa, Le Petite S***** and Roberto Cavalli are selling out, and there has been a great reaction to the Yves Saint Laurent trimmed tuxedo suit.

Alice Temperley’s beautifully beaded vintage-inspired wedding dresses are probably the closest Net-a-Porter has to a traditional wedding dress on the site, whereas a D&G lace strapless mini dress and a rhinestone-embellished tunic dress by 3.1 Philip Lim dress are particularly daring and probably destined for the registry office, or a beach ceremony in the Philippines rather than the church. “Women increasingly want something that will be put to good use beyond the big day and there are items that aren’t necessarily intended for weddings but work equally well.”

Net-a-Porter overcomes the slightly impersonal nature of shopping for a wedding dress online by providing fashion advisers; tips on what sort of veil, shoes and other accessories help to create the desired look; advice on what sort of figure-flattering underpinnings to wear with the dress; and also a Wishlist, so that you can email pictures of your choices to friends and family to get their opinion, much as you would if you took them shopping with you.

Most of these are elements that any retailer would provide in-store, that’s of course, if that particular designer is available in your town or city. Although labels like Lanvin, Alberta Ferretti and Chloe are already available in Hong Kong and China, smaller designer labels like Marchesa, Matthew Williamson and Alice Temperley have limited availability in Asia and their wedding designs (admittedly some exclusive at the moment to this website, or their own stores) are pretty much impossible to buy.

Of course not only can you shop for your “grand entrance” online but your “grand exit” as well. You can buy your designer going-away outfit and dream honeymoon wardrobe at the same time and what could be nicer than flipping through the online magazine as if you were shopping from a fashion shoot. Creating a magazine is very much at the root of Net-a-Porter’s successful e-tail formula. “We have always fused inspirational editorial content with commerce and our bridal boutique is no exception,” points out Holli Rogers.

Of course this isn’t the only way to buy designer wedding dresses online. Designers like Amanda Wakeley and Monique LHullier are venturing into selling wedding dresses or at least bridesmaids dresses on the Internet, but the offering is still very limited and the number of designers operating e-commerce sites can only grow. Maybe when they see the success of Net-a-Porter’s Wedding Boutique we will see that happen soon.