Wedding Dress Trends 2016: The Gospel According to Vogue.

Dear Reader,

This week Vogue Magazine published their guide to bridal trends for 2016 – based on the latest couture collections. 

Wedding dresses by Monique Lhuillier, Oscar de la Renta, Marchesa

I'm not sure my clients would agree with all of them – and I'm not giving away my own predictions yet! As always, I'll make mine at the end of this year, based on what my brides are loving and asking for. But it's fun to see these from Vogue, and to give you my take on them…

Wedding Dress Trend 1 – Sweet Nothings
The first trend Vogue noted is for barely there dresses, almost lingerie. This is a very couture look – much easier to carry off on a catwalk than in an English church or a garden reception. Super pretty, though. And very reminiscent of all those slinky 1930s and sultry 1940s dresses…

1930s inspired Butterfly wedding dress from my Heavenly Collection

Original 1940s lace wedding dress from my West London vintage studio.

Wedding Dress Trend 2 – Sparkles
Always in fashion, and rightly so. A generous sprinkling of sparkle appeared on the catwalks for next year, particularly from Badgley Mischka, Carolina Herrera and Marchesa. A little sparkle has always been one of the delights of vintage wedding dresses, of course. With many of the dresses in my Heavenly Collection, you can choose to add just a little bling… or a lot!

My 1940s style wedding dress, Bette, with its sparkly trim.

Pretty bling: Florence, 1940s style dress from my Heavenly Collection.

Wedding Dress Trend 3 – Knee Length
Shorter dresses made a welcome appearance on the bridal catwalks. But to see this trend at its best, simply look to the 1950s for the most fabulous tea–length wedding dresses…

'Blanche', 1950s style wedding dress, from my Heavenly Collection

Original 1950s 'cupcake' wedding dress from my West London vintage studio.

Wedding Dress Trend 4 – Bare Shoulders
Always popular with so many brides. Yet vintage dresses often take a subtler approach. Think of pretty keyhole openings, lace shoulders or tiny petal sleeves. Every bit as sexy, but a lot more subtle.

Angel, 1930s inspired lace wedding dress: vintage is more subtly sexy.

Original 1950s wedding dress from my West London vintage studio.

1970s off–the–shoulder wedding dress, from my West London vintage studio.

Wedding Dress Trend 5 – Separate Overskirts
A full-length transparent overskirt, cut to reveal a shorter one underneath...? Oh so fashiony! Very modern, a little bit mad, and quite fun – but not exactly a classic look. What do you think?

Wedding Dress with Overskirt, by the usually classic designer Vera Wang!

Wedding Dress Trend 6 – Cream
Ahhhh, beautiful. Now here's one I really can enthuse about – drawing as it does from the softness and romance of vintage wedding fashion. White is lovely too, of course. But cream, blush and ivory are so much more flattering to all skin tones. Often my clients come to me expecting to choose a white wedding dress, but once tried they fall in love with these lovely muted tones. That's why I offer my Heavenly Collection dresses in a range of pretty and flattering shades.

Full length lace wedding dress in cream by Oscar de la Renta

Butterfly, from my Heavenly Collection in a soft ivory.

Florence: a lace wedding dress with toning underslip (Heavenly Collection)

Well done, Vogue – fun predictions and a good showing for vintage styles. What did you think of them? Later this year, you can see how my own predictions match up!
Love
Helena
Heavenly Vintage Brides

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Wedding Wednesday- Where to Donate your Wedding Dress

taken by first blush photos

Whether you got married 3 weeks ago or 30 years ago, you may very well still have your dress sitting in a closet somewhere. This is one of those things that tends to get carried from house to house. Some of us have a lot of emotional attachment to the dress. Some of us have hopes that a family member will want to wear it someday (though I think if you got married during the age of super synthetic dresses, the odds are low). Some of us just don't know how to get rid of it, because throwing it out feels wrong.

Wedding dresses are a pretty environmentally tricky purchase- you spend a lot of money on something that will only be used once. I know I looked at lots of used dresses, but never had the nerve to buy one that way. Now, I think I might have gone about it differently. I did end up with a dress I loved, but in the end, I am not sure it made that huge of a difference.

This blog covers a lot of territory on shopping more ethically, but one of the most eco-friendly things you can do is to have less and to get rid of things in an ethical way. Sure, maybe someday your daughter will want to wear your wedding dress (she won't) but in that time, that dress could have lived multiple lives or multiple weddings. In an ideal world, we would all be way more willing to let things go, because the more used stuff is out there, the more we can all invest in secondhand instead of more brand new stuff that will land in a landfill.

So, the question becomes, where can you offload that wedding dress?

First, you could sell it online for yourself, make a little money back, and help out another bride. Here are some options:

Once Wed was my favorite place to browse dresses, and I think you can resell decor as well. Honestly, if I could do it all again, I would probably buy a dress from here.

Preowned Wedding Dresses is probably the most commonly used, though I tried to sell a dress on here and it never worked out. Still, if you have a recent dress that someone can still go to the store and try on, you might have a lot more luck than I did.

Second, you could donate it to an organization that will sell it secondhand to help make them money (my favorite idea, but you do you). Some ideas:

Adorned in Grace, based in Northern Oregon and Southern Washington, sells bridal and formal wear (so maybe somewhere to donate all those bridesmaid dresses?) to raise money to help women once caught in human trafficking and to raise awareness of the epically huge problem. Pretty awesome cause if you ask me. Your dress gets a second life, AND you get to help other women. So cool. I think I will send a few old prom and bridesmaid dresses their way.

Angel Gowns breaks your heart and makes you feel better about the universe at the same time. These organizations take donated wedding gowns and turn them into dresses for stillborn babies or babies that pass away. If your dress is older and you don't think some of the other organizations would want them, look into the multiple angel gown organizations to give a special gift to parents going through something truly awful.

Brides Across America is incredibly cool because it doesn't sell your dress, it gives it away to a military bride planning their wedding (a big challenge when your fiance is serving far away). This charity has given away wedding gowns to 12,000  brides in events all over the country. What a cool way to say thank you. They only accept dresses five years old or younger, so stop wringing your hands and go for it already.

The Bridal Garden- If you are shopping or donating in the New York City area (looking at you, Kleinfeld shoppers), the Bridal Garden sells wedding dresses to benefit underserved children in the New York area. Give them your dress or start your shopping there instead of the big salons.

Brides for a Cause is a huge and very successful consignment salon that sells their dresses "for charity" It felt a little vague to me (ok, a cause, but which one?), but they do donate to Brides Across America right now, so you are still contributing to a very positive mission by donating your dress to them. I love it.

Brides for Haiti sells your dresses to raise money for Saint Joseph's Parish's charitable work in Haiti. Looks a little trickier in terms of shipping, but otherwise great!

The Brides Project in Toronto sells the donated dresses with the profits all going to cancer charities; this store has already put 600,000 dollars into cancer charities! That's awesome!

Success in Style is a Baltimore-based organization that gives out of work individuals wardrobes to help in their business lives. They have a consignment store to fund their mission, and now they accept wedding gowns for their wedding consignment store Cherie Amor.

Wish Upon a Wedding gifts weddings and vow renewals to men and women (regardless of sexual orientation, which I think is especially important) suffering from terminal illnesses. I am looking around, and I am not positive they still accept dresses, but if you can't donate your dress, you could still sell it and donate the proceeds.

I know I have a dress I bought on super clearance panic(like 70% off?) that has been sitting in a closet since 2012. I am offering it on Buy Nothing, but if there aren't any bites, it is moving on to one of these charities. I am not sure if I am ready to have my wedding dress see the same fate, but I am seriously thinking about it.

When you see all these things your dress can do, it seems like it is really underperforming in your closet, right? I know I struggle with the idea of parting with my dress, and I don't know if I will muster the courage or not, but the more dresses get multiple uses (and do all these wonderful things for people who need them) the better for everyone.

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My vintage inspired wedding dresses are now available in Ireland! Meet lovely Pam of Vintage Bride!

Dear Reader,
Today I'm thrilled to introduce my charming new stockist, Pam of Vintage Bride.

Pam has her own private showroom in Dublin, Ireland. Here she stocks beautiful original vintage dresses and a small range of carefully selected vintage-inspired wedding dresses and accessories... 

My Butterfly 1930s style wedding dress at Vintage Bride's 'Bridal Showcase'

From the moment we met, I knew Pam was the right person to bring my own Heavenly Collection of vintage-inspired wedding dresses to Ireland. I'm delighted to announce that Vintage Bride is already stocking my Butterfly and Angel 1930s-style wedding dresses and my Bette 1940s-style dress. 

Butterfly 1930s style wedding dress from my Heavenly Collection

Angel 1930s inspired wedding dress from the Heavenly Collection

Butterfly 1930s style wedding dress from my Heavenly Collection

Butterfly 1930s style wedding dress from my Heavenly Collection

Bette 1940s inspired wedding dress from my Heavenly Collection

Bette 1940s inspired wedding dress from my Heavenly Collection

In addition, Vintage Brides will soon be stocking my 1940s-inspired Florence and 1960s-style Stella wedding dress...

1940s inspired vintage wedding dress, Florence, with keyhole back

1940s style wedding dress Florence

1940s style Florence wedding dress, elegant lace shoulders

Florence, 1940s style wedding dress with lace flutter sleeves

1940s-style Florence from front, showing lace flutter sleeve version

Stella 1960s inspired wedding dress from my Heavenly Collection

Stella 1960s style lace wedding dress from my Heavenly Collection

Pam has just organised the first fashion show featuring my dresses. Her 'Bridal Showcase' looks like a wonderfully fun and elegant affair!

My Butterfly dress (right) at the Bridal Showcase

Butterfly (left) at Vintage Bride's Bridal Showcase

If you'd like to contact Pam, you can find her website and Facebook pages here. 
Good luck Pam and Hello Ireland!
Love
Helena
Heavenly Vintage Brides

Dress photos with thanks to Robert Lawler Photography
Bridal Showcase photos with thanks to Paul Kelly Studio 3 Photography

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HAIRSTYLES for VINTAGE WEDDING DRESSES, Part 3: 1970s, and short hair.

Dear Reader

In the last of three posts about hairstyles to suit vintage wedding dresses, I'd like to finish with 1970s-inspired styles, and some gorgeous looks for short hair.

1970s 

For me, Farrah Fawcett typifies the 1970s look, with her tumbling sexy curls. But a literal interpretation is not what this is about, and I think the more relaxed dresses of the 1970s look great with softer styles in general. Plaits and braids are everywhere on the catwalk at the moment, and really work with this look. 

So to complement a 70s vintage wedding wedding dress, I'd recommend a combination of different sizes of plaits combined. And adding fresh flowers is very hard to beat for a boho 70s vibe!

Lots of lovely inspiration for these loose sexy styles below...

SHORT HAIR

In a complete contrast to the length of 1970s boho styles, short hair can be super-stylish too - and can work with vintage wedding dresses from any decade. 

Think of Anne Hathaway channelling Audrey Hepburn, for inspiration...!

Brazilian-American actress Morena Baccarin always knows how to wear her gorgeous short hair, dressing it up with waves. Here she wears it softer in the first images, then more retro and longer in the second. Both looks are very glamorous and would work beautifully with many different vintage wedding dresses. 

To end my post, one lady who really knows how to make an impact with short hair is Lupita Nyongo. These three red-carpet looks are all very different and each is quite vintage in feel. 

Thanks for stopping by to look at these lovely styles - I hope you've found some inspiration! I'll be back later this week with a post on gorgeous real vintage bride Molly.

Love

Helena
Heavenly Vintage Brides

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