Letters to the Editor
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Preservation
Preserving it would have cost more than the dress itself,
?? My lacy dress has been hanging in a garment bag in my mother's spare closet for almost 15 years. It seems to be preserving just fine.
Originally I didn't even want a "traditional" weddding dress. I married in 1992 in my mid-30s and it seemed most of my choices were either bare-shouldered, or decked out with the equivalent of small chandeliers, neither of which made me comfortable. Then I found a very classy, long-sleeved, slim-silhouette dress that looked astonishing on me. And I was able to buy the floor model at a substantial discount and have my mother (a more capable seamstress than the shops employ, I'm sure) make the minor alterations it needed. I love that dress and hope one day to fit back into it! When I'm dead, it can go the way of all my other possessions, but until then, there's great comfort in knowing where it is.
YMMV, obviously.
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Bring back the 1960's!
Remember "paper dresses" - those disposable fancy frocks that were the rage for apx. the requisite 15 minutes back in the mid-60s? Perhaps that wouldn't be a bad idea for bridal finery. Buy it - wear it - toss in the trash with the dead flowers and other used-up decorations!
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hmmm...
All I could think reading this article and looking at the pictures is - great, now you need two dresses - one to store as a keepsake and another to trash in sexy beach photos.
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Huh?
I rarely post twice on an article but many of the observations and comments on this article are long on moral outrage and short on justification for said outrage.
Keep the dress for a future daughter? Hah! I was two inches taller and of a totally different body type than my mother, and my daughter is three inches taller and also of a totally different body type than me. And my family is not unusual in that respect. You can narrow shoulders on a dress but it's hard to make them bigger. You can shorten a dress, but it is hard to lengthen it. Not to mention that styles change, many materials fade and sometimes even the best intentions cannot save a dress or suit from mothes or keep thread from disintegrating. I kept my dress, but I don't expect my daughter to wear it, because it was actually a slightly altered and retrimmed bridesmaid gown. If she wants to alter it and wear it, fine. I hope it has held up.
Which brings me to donating it. That can be done too, but it better be sold quickly, because the amount of pawing, trying-on and floor dragging it will be submitted to in an average thrift store will quickly destroy it just as much as staging a trash-the-dress photo shoot. I'm not putting down thrift store shoppers. I'm a regular thrifter myself. But most of these stores don't have high enough racks to keep the skirts from dragging on the floor or enough personnel to "protect" the dress from curious children or people who try it on and rip it in the process, which is why most bride dresses are sold in a seperate department of a store or in a specialty shop with salespeople to help you try on dresses. I have heard of some stores that specifically deal with once-used bridal dresses and it is a nice idea, but not accessible to many brides.
And I know that many of you are going to say that prom dresses are donated all the time, and they are, but the stores can keep them off the racks until a couple of months before prom season and lessen their time out on the floor. Weddings are year-round.
As far as a theatre company? Maybe, but my kids must have been in 30 high school plays total and I don't remember a wedding dress in any of them. They actually needed men's clothing more than anything, but I don't rememember too many men thinking to donate their old suits to theatre companies.
Which brings me to my last point. Many men have accused the brides of being brats and self-centered, totally ignoring the history of men trashing high-priced items and being admired for it. Isn't that what NASCAR is all about? I know that NASCAR is a business that can well-afford the destruction, but if a dress belongs to the bride, her finances are no worse off than if she hung it in a closet for 20 years.
Pete Townshead of the Who was initially put down for smashing his guitars, but it eventually became an almost-obligation for rockers to destroy their instruments. And I don't remember one person saying that if they didn't want them they should donate them. Admittedly, that is what is happening a little more these days, i.e. Eric Clapton auctioning off his guitars for charity, so times change, but it was a slow change, and the destruction of instruments continues in music videos and concert tours to this day.
And lastly, some of those pictures had the grooms trashing their tuxes. Where is the outrage against them?
Actually, I think it would be a great idea for BRIDESMAIDS to really trash their dresses and photograph the process. They might actually have some real tension to get out of their systems.
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re: flyover
It's not that hard to lengthen a dress. Most wedding dresses are hemmed with extra fabric in the hem for just this reason. Failing that, it's possible to add a hem treatment. I've been a seamstress off and on over the years, and I've altered many wedding dresses to bring them up to date - remove the sleeves, fill in with lace, add gores, remove bustles and boning, etc. One dress went from 1895 to 1935 (remove bustle, add shoulder pads) then from 1935 to 1995 (remove shoulder pads, remove sleeves, completely rework the line of the torso.) The bride was pleased to wear her grandmother and great-grandmother's dress, and it made her mom say she regretted her decision to forgo a formal wedding.
The classic school play which requires a wedding dress is Sound of Music. Of course, today's sleeveless dresses don't look like any other wedding dresses in the history of costume, so the typical modern wedding dress won't work.
I know of one dedicated wedding dress reseller and two high-end resellers which handle wedding dresses in my small suburb of Memphis. These are not "thrift shops," the dresses are in bags where shoppers don't "paw" them, and the women who run the store assist people in trying on garments even if they don't happen to be wedding dresses. If you don't have such a store in your town, it's easy as pie to sell your dress on ebay.
What I find offensive isn't so much the trashing of the dress as the thought behind it - the title of the article refers to "Bride rage." There's an easy way to avoid bride rage - if marriage inspires rage in you, don't get married. I have zero sympathy for people who chose to make themselves miserable.
The brides who have informal photos taken in their wedding dresses without damaging them aren't really participating in "trash your dress" sessions, are they? Nevertheless, "I want to be a fashion model for a day" isn't a sentiment which has anything whatsoever to do with getting married.