Harriet Walker on the elusive search for an outfit to get married in that she a) likes, and b) can sit down in
In a cubicle of Browns Bride in Marylebone, shop assistant Jenny crimps my flesh like the edge of a cornish pasty in a valiant effort to fit it between the teeth of a tiny zip that wouldn’t look out of place on an item of Barbie clothing.
I am naked but for the silken, sausage-like casing I’m being shoehorned into. It’s so tight even my Spanx won’t fit underneath it. They are lying balefully on the regulation Louis XIV chair that all bridal shops have in their changing rooms.
“I’ve seen it all before,” says Jenny, closing the zip with an almighty heave. I’m in. I am a glittering chipolata of beads and embroidery, with a giant fishtail of frothy tulle that falls from knee to floor. Despite appearances, that zip turns out to have the strength of a forklift truck. My delight at trying on a dress like this is tempered only slightly by how hot my thighs have suddenly become.
I won’t be wearing anything like on this on my wedding day, of course. I’m a fashion editor, darling, and we don’t do frothy sausages.
So what should we get married in? I wish I knew. It’s the first question people ask when they find out I’m engaged. They think I have it all mapped out and Oscar de la Renta is on speed-dial. Most people assume I’ve had the design carved into my heart since my teenage years (I haven’t), or that I know everything there is to know about wedding dresses and how to choose one (I don’t). Bridalwear might seem like just more clothing to the uninitiated – though that hardly does justice to some of the creations on offer – but it is very different from the sort of shopping I’m used to.
Jade Beer, editor of Brides magazine, agrees. “Most women come to this point in their lives knowing very little about what is available, so they default to something obvious and safe,” she says. “If you don’t want to go up the aisle in a strapless ballgown, you don’t need to.”
The thing is, I sort of do want to. But I’m marrying a modest-verging-on-ascetic atheist in a register office. He’s worried music and readings might be overdoing it. So, besides the look of deep mortification I can imagine on his face as I walk in, a ballgown just doesn’t seem appropriate. There’s no shame in underdressing, but there is plenty in gilding the lily.
One thing about being a fashion editor is you’re duty-bound to be cool. Whatever you wear, you will be judged – not only by your friends but also by those in the industry. Your public (your family, plus Instagram) expects something different, something edgy and modern, something with trousers, perhaps. As an arbiter of taste, you must bring Something New to the wedding conversation, despite there being nothing original left to say.
But they also demand that you look bridal, too. Soon after I got engaged, my mum made me promise I wouldn’t wear a leather dress. She saw me in one once and is yet to recover. Then she made me promise not to wear black, then jeans.
Fashion editors wear all sorts of things when they get married. I’ve checked. A purple Galliano slip (before everyone knew about him), an Edwardian nightdress, Alaïa snakeskin, customised Erdem, a £24 jumpsuit from a vintage shop. One even wore jeans, presumably to her mother’s chagrin. They are united by one key factor: fashion editors don’t do blushing bride; they do nonchalant, even though there is absolutely nothing nonchalant about a wedding.
In the UK, the average big day costs £21,000. That sounds a lot, but really isn’t when you consider how many contractors will charge you at least £1,000 just for calling them and saying the “w” word. Twenty per cent of couples borrow money to pay for their wedding; 50 per cent expect to go over budget and are happier to live in penury than compromise their nuptial vision. Times might be hard, but the cost of weddings has gone up 5 per cent since 2009, and the amount of money spent per guest has increased from £198 in 2009 to £226 in 2014.
I hope our guests aren’t reading this.
“We’ve sourced white peacocks for a wedding in Cap Ferrat, flown an eight-tier cake to St Petersburg on a private jet and sourced micro-pigs for a petting zoo,” says Caroline Villamizar Duque, founder of Quintessentially Weddings, planners to the 6 per cent of people globally who spend more than £60,000 on their big day.
“Our brides tend to spend between £750 and £1,000 per guest,” she says. “When it comes to dresses, they want something bespoke from a wedding couturier such as Phillipa Lepley or a fashion house like Alexander McQueen.”
Lepley is known for her corsetry, and her designs are the country-wedding, Scarlett O’Hara crinoline dream I thought I’d left behind with my GCSEs. But I’m desperate to try one on. The Lepley I wore for this shoot came with its own special person to lace me in, a woman I persuaded to lace it tighter and tighter until I felt sick and a vague feeling of panic set in. But it looked amazing.
Laced a bit looser, it still slimmed several inches off my waist. And yet, beautiful as it was, it wasn’t very me. I’m not posh enough for a dress like this. It’s the same with rugby shirts. They never look on me the way they do on Sloaney girls, because I’m from the north. It also came in at £10,900, with the veil and sash adding on another £3,400. If that brings you out in a cold sweat, as it did me, then you probably aren’t Lepley’s target market.
I see expensive clothes every day, many of which aren’t worth what’s being charged. But then wedding dresses are on another level. The lace craftsmanship, the hand embroidery and bristling beading, the bespoke pattern-cutting and couture fittings, more than justify the prices. But this is a dress you’ll wear once, for 12 hours at the most. Fashion editors don’t flinch at paying a couple of thousand for the must-have coat by The Row or a Céline handbag, but they tell themselves they’ll wear it to death (approximately one year). You can’t really argue that with a wedding dress.
Emma, 31, works in an investment company. Her Jenny Packham dress cost £4,000. “In hindsight, I’m a bit embarrassed that I got caught up enough in the wedding ‘thing’ to think that was an acceptable amount of money to spend,” she says. “I have plans to alter it so I can wear it again, but two years later, I still haven’t got round to it.”
I have a degree in “things I think I’ll wear again but know really I won’t”. I have diplomas in “things I think look good that non-fashion people won’t understand” and “things I’d be embarrassed about if fashion people saw me wearing them”. So there is a minefield of issues to navigate in the changing room.
Normally, I buy clothes because I feel like a better version of myself in them, but given I don’t wear white (I’m too pale, too messy) or formalwear (too lazy), I don’t recognise myself in any of the dresses I try on. How can you feel like yourself when you can’t go to the loo without help, or put your own shoes on?
“I quickly became exasperated with the whole process,” says Ashley, 31, a solicitor. She eventually chose a £2,000 Temperley number. “I didn’t have that ‘the one’ moment. I liked a number of dresses and would have been happy in any of them, which obviously made me feel as if I hadn’t found the right one.”
I blame my job for my faulty bride genes. In fashion circles, trainers, elasticated waistbands and no make-up are de rigueur. Ask me to dress up and I’m at a loss. I don’t even wear heels any more. One fashion editor I know insisted on wearing her favourite Gap polo neck over her wedding dress – remade in cashmere by one of her designer friends, of course.
After trying on everything from short (wrong) to sexy (ditto, with added yuck), and a trouser suit (no, no, no, no, no), I realise there are lots of styles of wedding dress, but none of them is actually very stylish. What fashion trends there are in bridalwear tend to be translated without much subtlety. You’re either classic bride, romantic bride, boho bride or reality TV/strumpet bride. I’m paralysed by choice but I also feel that there isn’t enough variety. I might be a slavish follower of fashion, but I’m not used to dressing as a trope.
“Our new issue has a bridal bralet, a cream sheepskin coat, a white leather jacket and trousers and a sheer T-shirt,” says Brides’ Jade Beer. “It shows how much bridal design has moved on. But a confident couple will wear whatever they like on their wedding day.”
And that’s just the problem. Weddings, and wedding dresses, are such a procession of a couple’s likes and dislikes that it feels as if your taste is on trial for the day. In fashion, there is always someone more glamorous or important than you for everybody to look at. On your wedding day, there isn’t – that person is you, unless one of your bridesmaids is Pippa Middleton.
Some people thrive on this. I don’t. As far as I can tell, getting married is all about how much you’re willing to suppress the dreadful person you are deep, deep inside who only wants to talk about herself and which hand soap she’s chosen for the loos at the reception (Aesop Reverence, £27 per bottle, obvs – one of the first and still one of the only things I have decided on). The push and pull between wanting to look cool and wanting to be cool are like Newton’s laws of motion. Ideally, people will think this wedding just sort of happened without me even trying, even though I’m secretly getting up at 6am four times a week to sort out my bingo wings.
It took just one appointment at a bridal shop to make me realise I’m not cut out for this. I felt too big sitting on the tiny doll’s house furniture. I felt like my voice was booming out across the serene beige interior. I kept worrying I might burp and ruin the atmosphere for everybody else. But most importantly, every dress I tried on made me feel more and more like a rugby player in drag.
So I’m trying a different tack with my dress. I’ve asked designer Richard Nicoll to create it for me. We came up with it while drinking beer in his studio. Nicoll makes the sort of clothes I want to spend the rest of my life in, so it’s a shame I’m not marrying him, really. It won’t be tight and it won’t be white and it won’t take up three seats on the bus. Oh, and I’ll be able to walk in it, too. Call it a perk of the job if you like. I’m just glad to be out of that glittery sausage skin.
Shoot credits
Photographer: Elisabeth Hoff
Styling assistant: Jenny Wynne
Hair and make-up: Aly Hazlewood using YSL Beauté and L’Oréal Professionnel Tecni.Art
Look 1: dress, £10,900, veil, £2,950, and sash, £450, all Phillipa Lepley (phillipalepley.com)
Look 2: jacket, £1,150, and trousers, £490, both Gucci (matchesfashion.com); shoes, £525, Sophia Webster (sophiawebster.com)
Look 3: dress, £7,600, Romona Keveza, veil, £1,550, Toni Federici, comb, £425, Paris by Debra Moreland
Look 4: dress, £3,700, and cape, £1,600, both Elizabeth Fillmore
Look 5: dress, £2,200, Peter Langner, shoes, £680, Manolo Blahnik
Look 6: dress, £8,750, Galia Lahav, veil, £220, Toni Federici
All bridalwear looks 3-6, brownsfashion.com