Celebrity Wedding Dresses Want to look like a Princess, The First Lady or Bella Swan on your wedding day?
“The aisle becomes the next red carpet, and we analyze it for trends,” says WeddingChannel.com associate editor Amy Eisinger.
New Yorker Lisa Sharma donned a David’s Bridal version of the dress Kate Middleton wore for her April 2011 nuptials. As luck would have it, Sharma’s boyfriend proposed just a few weeks after the Windsors’ wedding. So when she heard David’s Bridal had created a knockoff of Kate Middleton’s Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen gown for just $999, she made a beeline for the branch on Sixth Avenue atWest 25th Street, clutching her royal-wedding edition of People magazine. Not surprisingly, Sharma’s veil, tiara, shoes and the vintage Rolls-Royce that escorted her to the ceremony were also all inspired by HRH Catherine. She fondly remembers her wedding day…“I felt like a princess and I looked like a princess”
The Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding gown wasn’t alone in causing widespread anticipation lately…
In fact, Bella Swan – the fictional star of the Twilight movie series ran her a close second.The stunning design, created by Carolina Herrera made out of crepe satin and French Chantilly lace, 152 buttons line the back of Bella’s dress, with 17 additional buttons on each sleeve took Ms. Herrera and four seamstresses six months to custom make for Ms. Stewart. Look familiar? The buttons on Bella Swan’s gown are very similar to those on the maid of honour gown worn by Pippa Middleton for the Royal Wedding in April. The estimated value of Bella’s wedding dress is $35,000, a similar amount to Pippa’s gown, rumoured to have cost around £20,000. Ms Herrera plans to include the design for Bella’s dress in her 2012 collection, to be available at her CHNY boutiques this year. The bridal dress company Alfred Angelo will be selling a replica of the dress in select stores, priced at $799. Bella’s Manolo Blahnik shoes were embellised with jewels.
“Do you really want to say, ‘I copied my wedding-day look from “Twilight,” that teen novel?’ ”Well, yes, actually, if you’re Christine Fritz, the 46-year-old airline reservations agent and self-described “Twi-Hard fan” fromJacksonville,Fla., is one of the first brides in the country to snag a replica Bella wedding dress. “I went to see [‘Twilight’ movie] ‘Breaking Dawn’ because I was eager to see what her dress looked like,” says Fritz, who notes she hasn’t missed a single installment of the franchise. “I said, ‘Wow, that’s it — that’s my dress!’ ” The recently engaged Fritz, a mother of three who owns all the “Twilight” books, then caught a glimpse of the Bella dress, being sold for $799 in the window of an Alfred Angelo Bridal boutique on her way to work a few weeks ago. “I pulled over the car — I had to buy it. I also have my name signed on Edward’s [cardboard cutout] — so he’s mine when this is over,” laughs Fritz, whose 19-year-old daughter witnessed the impromptu gown purchase, slightly chagrined. “She said, ‘Mom, you’re such a dork, but get it!’ ” Speaking of her upcoming February 17th wedding ”…in my mind, I’m marrying my Edward,” she avows.
Erin Halper, a 32-year-old who runs a financial marketing firm, says she selected her one-shoulder wedding dress precisely because it mimicked Michelle Obama’s inaugural ball gown. “I really wanted a dress that looked very much of this time, of this era,” explains Halper. “I knew that if it was something like what Michelle wore, then it would be trendy.” In January 2009, Halper watched the Obamas waltzing on TV from her Midtown East apartment. “I remember saying, ‘Wow, if I could have that in a wedding dress, it would be amazing.’ ” She was married 10 months later. While she couldn’t afford the original Jason Wu design, she says her $1,800 Pronovias gown was an ideal imitation — albeit a bit sexier.
Eisinger lists Grace Kelly as the original celebrity wedding muse, but says that ABS by Allen Schwartz’s 2010 knockoff of Chelsea Clinton’s Vera Wang gown was the first replica dress brought to the mass market at an affordable price. She notes that it’s far more common for brides to borrow a single element from a star’s wedding look — say, a sleeve-length or veil style — than duplicate a gown thread for thread. Ultimately, copycat gowns fall in and out of favor along with their famous models. WeddingChannel.com’s Eisinger points out that the previously hotly anticipated Kim Kardashian replica gown by Vera Wang for David’s Bridal (expected to be in stores this spring) is now somewhat stigmatized.
On the other hand, says Reed Kimmel, owner of RK Bridal onWest 39th Street, “Kate Middleton could have worn a burlap bag and people would have jumped to wear it.”
Read more: CREDITS:
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/fashion/wore_an_list_wedding_dress_KhELx5aezkUSxF2ikvIUsL
http://www.brides.com/blogs/aisle-say/2011/08/bellas-wedding-dress-alfred-angelo.html
