Are We Sacrificing our Individuality for Ever Changing Bridal Trends?
It’s no secret to society that wedding dress trends have got the bridal world in a choke hold. Fashion is ever changing, ever evolving - and with each new year, brings new designs, new textures and new trends. However, is the rate at which the world of bridal fashion accelerating too fast for us to keep up with? Has the seeming absurdity of modern design, gone too far? And to top it all off, do we really care?
The thing to remember about bridal fashion and the images that we are bombarded with on Instagram, Tik Tok and Pinterest, is that it is largely driven by the US market. Filtered down to us by mythical moguels wrapped in mole-skin and muslin, sitting atop their thrones fuelled by espresso and self-importance. New designs are launched for the fashion ‘innovators’ and the ‘early adopters’. Celebrities, models and fashionistas who want to dress to impress and who want the latest anything to ensure that they are absolutely, positively, ‘up to date’. This type of mentality, strange as it will sound to some, is actually quite usual in our society - and it doesn’t just concern clothes. How many times have you turned on the TV or seen images online, of people camping outside shopping centres to get the latest Iphone? Being at the forefront of technology, means something to a lot of people in the same way being at the forefront of fashion means something to others. It speaks to their identity, to their personal brand. I digress…
“Whether you care to admit it it or not, these trends will and have influenced you and the decisions you will make when purchasing your wedding dress”
Danielle Frankel
Halfpenny London
Kyha
Once these often ostentatious and avant-garde designs filter through the innovators and early adopters, they are smoothed out, softened, commercialised and taken up by the largest part of the demographic - the ‘early majority’ and the ‘late majority’. Whether you care to admit it it or not, these trends will and have influenced you and the decisions you will make when purchasing your wedding dress. At the time of publishing this article, nearing the start of 2026, I will have been ensconsed in the wedding industry for nearly 17 years and in the bridal industry for nearly a decade. How many wedding dresses with leg splits do you think were available in 2018? How many basque waist wedding dresses did you see in 2019? How popular do you think mantilla veils were in the UK in 2020? I will give you the answer but you can probably already guess - none of these designs were popular, AT ALL. In fact, the first time I saw one of our designers launch a ‘basque waist’ wedding dress in 2023, I couldn’t get my head around it. Upon further investigation, I noticed a lot of this style emerging in the US and predicted that we would be seeing them in the UK by spring 2024. I was correct.
Trends don’t emerge into mainstream bridal fashion by accident you see. They are cultivated, coloured, crafted and filtered into our consciousness from bridal designers and fashion houses through social platforms - on repeat. That is why today, we love a cheeky leg split, a little basque waist and a splash of chantilly lace; because that is what we’re told to love. We become desensitised to designs that start out as seemingly outlandish and obscure. This is how fashion works and there really is nothing wrong with that. It’s been the same for centuries and if you remain unconvinced, please see my video on the ‘Mariage a la Mode’ exhibition, filmed at the Musuem of Chertsey, which is up on my Instagram and Tik Tok channels.
“Isn’t the thing we should be chasing, authenticity? A sense of self-identity? An ability to stand seperately from the crowds and say ‘this is me, exactly as I choose to be, not because I am told to be’.”
Monique L’Huillier
Galia x Alicia Rinka
Monique L’Huillier
The fundamental question I’d like to ‘undress’ in this article is - should we actually care? In ten or twenty years, we will most likely be looking back and wondering, ‘what were we thinking,’ anyway! So why do we chase trends like they’re a hot commodity, when they almost always have a shelf life? Isn’t the thing we should be chasing, authenticity? A sense of self-identity? An ability to stand seperately from the crowds and say ‘this is me, exactly as I choose to be, not because I am told to be’.
I know that I am not alone when I admit knowing very well the feeling of, ‘Oh God, this outfit isn’t good enough’. I remember it from a young age, seeing my peers pimped out in branded sports wear, the latest trainers and expensive, ‘fashionable’ jewellery. I didn’t grow up in a household where we could afford branded clothing like Nike or Puma (which was popular back in the day thank you very much). But I also remember feeling like I didn’t actually like any of that stuff any way?! So where did that feeling of fear come from? That intense insecurity of feeling as if I never ‘looked’ good enough? Partly of course from growing up as ‘the bigger girl’, ‘the chubby one’, the ‘wouldn’t she be pretty if she lost some weight’ teen. More than that though, it was a feeling of being excluded - of being left out from this private club that I didn’t have access to.
Whilst fashion trends can inspire a generation and offer frivolity and fancifulness in an often funereal society, they can also make us feel inferior if we ‘just don’t get it’. Should I get it? Why don’t I get it? Am I not fashionable? Believe it or not, these are still challenges I face today (although certainly not in my personal life). When I reached the ripe age of 30, I realised that I gave so few f**ks about what people thought of the way I dressed, it was almost comical. In my professional life however, I often face that familiar demon that I remember from so long ago. In an industry consumed by trends, I often find myself questioning my choices, my taste and without sounding too dramatic, my sanity. A big part of the difficulty in this business is choosing the designs you wish to stock. Admittedly, I have never followed the trends too closely for fear of losing sight of reality and for fear of losing what I believe makes my boutique different.
“Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
Ellie Saab
House of Gilles
Danielle Frankel
For some professionals who operate in the world of fashion, there is great strength in telling people what is ‘on trend’ and what they should be wearing. I have personally never found strength in that and speaking franlky, I find it somewhat obnoxious. I see it though. I see boutiques and their owners positioning themselves into ever shrinking circles of exclusivity and you’re either in the circle, or you’re not. “What do you mean you don’t like bum cheek cutouts and feathery nipple tassels? You can’t be up to date!?” This type of snort-worthy pomposity has never been my style and I often wonder if that makes me exceptionally good at what I do, or not? I feel as if I am someone who can look at the avant-garde and appreciate the artistry but equally, I enjoy seeing people utilise fashion in their own way, adopting it and creating their own identity through clothing whether it is ‘on trend’ or not. Fashion should not be weaponised to be exclusionary but rather should be used as a vehicle for total self-expression. On a day to day basis this is probably something that a lot of us, myself included, don’t worry too much about. On your wedding day however, the only thing I could hope for any bride, is to be able to get married feeling the absolute most beautiful, most electric and most authentic version of themselves - trends be damned.
On the reverse side of the coin, what about those amongst us who really do care about trends? Those of you who have watched the amazing performance by Meryl Streep in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, will have some sort of understanding of why our clothes look the way that they do. Why we wear certain colours, certain fabrics, certain length skirts. It all filters down from somewhere and for some people, being ahead of the curve is a powerful instrument - a tool to achieve social and personal success. If you’re a fashion innovator or an early adopter, your bridalicious appetite will surely be satisfied in the coming months. We are on the road towards some of the most extravegant and experimental bridal fashion that I have certainly ever seen and whilst I don’t believe that all of these innovations will take root, I wait with bated breath to see how the UK market reacts to this sharp pivot away from the streamlined, ‘classic’ look that has dominated the industry until just recently.
Galia Lahav
Nicole Felicia
Jaclyn Whyte
I think it is clear to me - and writing this short article has been somewhat cathartic, so thank you if you’ve gotten this far with it - that I revel in the joy of those who apply fashion to their authentic sense of self, whatever that means. Those who dress according to their taste, their personalities, their style, regardless of what is in or out of fashion. Why would you deny yourself the opportunity to express yourself, the real you, exactly as you are? The you before you picked up that fashion magazine and realised that you weren’t ‘on trend’. If you’re a colourful person who loves texture and pattern but the latest bridal trend is ‘plain and simple’, what are you going to do? Conversely, if your perfect style is sleek and simple, you could be in for a nasty shock when you see the designs that came out of New York Bridal week just recently! But what are you going to do about it? Worry about what other people think because you’re not head to toe in the latest fashion? I hope not. Fashion is there to be appreciated, discussed, adopted or discarded - and it really doesn’t matter which. That is the real beauty of design and in answer to my original question, ‘should we really care’? I’m going to leave that up to you, to decide…
Hannah x