Wedding Dress Mondays: Couture Wedding Dresses from the Paris Runways

Feb 7, 2012 by Pretty Clever Bride

One of the most fun parts of being the Pretty Clever Bride is looking at many, many, many photos of amazing and beautiful designer wedding dresses. I mean, really I could look at wedding dresses all day long. And there was a time when couture fashion houses outfitted celebrities in wedding dresses like this one:

So cruising the photos of recent runway shows is usually nothing but pleasure. Until today. Ladies… I get the whole “couture” thing – wearable art, fantasy, etc. But when perfectly awesome wedding dress designers go couture and make something that doesn’t bear a passing resemblance to a wedding dress… I mean, really? Take a tour from some “couture wedding dresses” from Paris runways, and tell me what you think. Warning: I’m using the term “wedding dress” in the loosest possible way.

Take this Stephane Rolland masterpiece. Now, as a thing, it’s interesting to look at. It’s definitely one of those couture things that no normal person would have occasion to wear. But is it a wedding dress? It feels like Stephane Rolland forgot to make a wedding dress for the collection and that last minute said, “I’ll call this one a wedding dress.” And assuming this woman is your standard stick sized model, the dress is making her look ginormous!

This little number from Jean Paul Gautier is “inspired by Amy Winehouse.” Amy Winehouse was an amazing vocal talent and a very troubled soul with a disastrous marriage to her credit. I will not speak disparagingly of the now departed Ms. Winehouse (it’s really not funny), but I also will not channel her spirit on my wedding day. That just seems like some bad mojo. At least if you squint really hard, it kind of resembles a wedding dress.

Okay, I don’t even know what to say about this Iris Van Herpen wedding dress. Like the first Stephane Rolland dress, it seems to be making a presumably twiggy runway model like kind of… wide. There’s something very black widow spider about the pattern and there’s something vague obscene and tasteless about the cutout hemline. I saw, if you’ve got it, work it… but I’m not sure any bride wants to worry about the kind of mishaps that hemline might lead to on her wedding day.

What? What! What? I only thought I had nothing to say about that Iris Van Herpen creation until I saw this Alexis Mabille wedding dress. I’m sorry, “wedding dress.” Show of hands – how many of you are stocking up on gold body paint and out-sized gold lame head pieces for the big day?

Ah but Givenchy knows what a bride really wants in a wedding dress – a shapeless silk sack and with a little “metal mouth” face paint to spice things up. At least I think that’s what’s on this poor gal’s face, unless she had some sort of terrible industrial accident. I can’t even really comment on the dress because the, ahem, styling here is just distracting and kind of hilarious.

Elie Saab turned the volume down a tiny bit with this cotton-candy-pink and white poofy extravagana wedding dress. Part of me thinks it’s not too bad and part of me thinks I only think this because I’m still confused by the Givenchy “metal mouth.” I liked Barbie a lot when I was a child, too, but I don’t see a wedding as an excuse to put on my pink dress and get in my pink corvette to drive to my all pink wedding.

What do you think my lovely brides to be? Do any of these wedding dress have redeeming qualities? Do you think I’m completely wrong and of course you’ve been dreaming of your perfect wedding day when you will slather yourself in gold body paint and march down the aisle? Let me know in the comments!