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The above image is Vera Wang's black wedding dress from Fall 2010. It is not on her website, but it is posted on Brides.com. In fact, Wang has removed all black wedding dresses from her website. I speculate that it's because they don't sell well. What bride wants to be in black? But Wang still cannot help adding black bows and ribbons to her multi-colored gowns, which come in whites, beiges, lime greens and yellows (no reds, so far).
Most brides still prefer their dresses in white (or ivory), so I wonder how Wang even makes good profit off her bridal designs? Not surprisingly, she has branched out into "regular" fashion design (I'm getting tired of shoddy dresses thrown at us by mediocre and irresponsible designers), as well as standard home decor, which other designers have done better. I don't see any particularly stand-out products from any of her departments.
Amsale Aberra, another wedding dress designer, has simply kept to her bridal background. She smartly designs bridesmaid's dresses also, and adds color and versatile styles to her bridesmaids collections, with dresses that that can be worn at other formal occasions.
Wang also of course designs bridesmaids dresses, but her women are those postmodern, beauty-hating women, who have no qualms about wearing a dress with irregular and uneven cuts.
I compare and contrast these two designers below.
In yesterday's blog, I posted a photo of a wedding dress by Vera Wang, calling it "Mounds of Chiffon." I should call the image above, "Mounds of Black Chiffon."
I wrote:
I think what's happening is that [Chinese in the West] cannot quite come up to par with the Western world and its civilization...Here's my comment on Vera Wang's black wedding dresses in a blog post from last year, And the Bride Wore Black:
Wang's flashing bride in black is a negative statement on weddings, and life, in general. In our culture, white is for purity, whereas black is often for death, the mysterious (and evil?) underworld, darkness and obfuscation. And if the bride wears black, it is as though the she went to her own funeral. Or is a widow executing a vengeful act...And what real-life bride wants to be dressed in black, even with the modern woman's dearth of cultural knowledge and sensitivity?I wrote about Amsale, another wedding dress designer, for the first time in a 2006 post: The Global Runway, 2: Formality and Culture
One of the most formal events of anyone's life is one's wedding. So, it seems hardly surprising that (Ethiopian) American fashion designer Amsale chose to design wedding dresses.The rest of the post is here.
Amsale's Christian, formalized background, I would argue, led her to pursue one of the most formal clothings of all.
Amsale was on The View this summer, where she showed her designs in her friendly and charming manner, unfazed by those four threatening women.
Videos of Amsale on The View (Part 1 and Part 2).
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Compare and contrast: Vera Wang vs. Amsale.