Amsale: Wedding Dress Designer

Since I have credited Vera Wang with a link and even a photo of her dress (albeit with a negative review, but who knows, someone might like her work...) in my previous post, I will do the same for Amsale. I write about Amsale in an earlier post on Chelsea choosing Vera Wang as her wedding dress designer. I suggest that Amsale might have been a better choice. I wrote a blog on Amsale some time ago. Below is the full post on Amsale, her designs and her background, to show why I think she is superior to Wang.

The Global Runway Part 2: Formality and Culture

(Above link from April 1, 2006 Camera Lucida blog entry)

Amsale's Christian, formalized background, I would argue, led her to pursue one of the most formal clothings of all.

At her wedding, a girl is finally a woman. She leaves her parents' home to start her own. And will soon have her own children with whom she must interact as a fully matured adult.

Although, in Christian households, there is a hierarchy of adults, the woman is still the head of the internal runnings of the household, and the behavior and upbringing of the children. She cannot afford to regress into the child she was at her parents’ home.

That is the ideal, in any case.

So, the wedding dress expresses this ideal. It shows a formal and aesthetic acceptance of the woman's adulthood and womanhood at a most important turning point in her life.

Amsale captures this beautifully.

Almost all of her designs are exquisitely formal. Her choice of the stiffer satin rather than the formless silk, her clinching of the waist, her emphasis on clean, straight lines, and above all a mature femininity of beautiful lacework, show her innate understanding of this unique moment in a woman’s life.

I’m not surprised that Amsale has so far stuck with designing bridal wear, rather than branching out into other clothing lines

Until she has mastered her trade to the level of the formal designer greats like Valentino, she is better off keeping out of the limelight which might force her to compromise her style for the running market.

At least, that would be my advice to her.

Amsale's ivory-toned wedding gowns

[click on images to see larger versions]

Photos from Amsale's website