Color and style of bridal gowns changing
Jan. 27—Penny Bowers-Schebal, owner of Formality Resale in Geneva, said since the COVID-19 pandemic, she has seen a trend of brides seeking more comfortable gowns.
"Pre-COVID, we might have seen something that was more formal," Bowers-Schebal said. "Since COVID, we have seen a trend towards gowns that can be worn outside, gowns that can be worn easily without any sort of big hoop slips."
There has also been a trend toward a wider variety of colors.
"Thirty years ago, you had two colors, you had ivory and you had white," she said. "Now, we have champaign, we have blush, we have pale blue, we have ivory, we have white.
"But I will tell you that white is almost never asked for. We sell more blush gowns than we do white. The trend is for soft, muted colors."
The colors have emerged as a trend in recent years.
"That would have shocked my grandmother, if she would see all of these colors," Bowers-Schebal said.
Trends for veils match the trend for more comfortable gowns.
"We are seeing, soft comfortable trends for brides when it comes to their accessories as well," she said. "Twenty years ago, you might have seen very elaborate head-pieces, and you just don't see those anymore. The trend is to see the bride, and not the headdress and the very big gown."
When preparing to purchase a wedding dress, Bowers-Schebal advised brides to keep an open mind.
"She will probably end up getting something that she had no idea that she would get," she said. "It's very common for brides to have their Pinterest boards or photographs or pictures that they want to show us, and then they end up with something very, very different."
Bowers-Schebal said she reassures clients that picking a different kind of dress happens all the time.
"It happened to me. It happens 90 percent of the time, a bride will select something that she never thought of," she said. "And I think that's part of the joy of it, and that's why you go to a bridal boutique, is so you can try those things on."
Sizing for bridal gowns is very different, Bowers-Schebal said.
"What she wears in her daily life is not what she wears in bridal," she said.
Traditional bridal boutiques can have a 6- to 10-month wait from selecting a dress, while off-the-rack stores like Formality Resale let brides take home the dress they tried on and fell in love with, Bowers-Schebal said.
"That is an emerging trend that I don't think is going away, and is a newer type of shopping for bridal gowns," she said.
