After a solid month of shows, presentations, and appointments for Spring 2020, you’d be hard-pressed to get an editor to attend another one anytime soon. Luckily for those of us covering bridal, Lela Rose’s events are a pleasure to attend—they’re laid-back, high-spirited, and actually fun. You couldn’t really call her event a “real” show, anyway: there were no seat assignments, no security guards, no riser of aggressive photographers. It was more of a “guerrilla show” or flash mob, complete with unsuspecting bystanders walking their dogs or chatting on park benches. As in-the-know editors and guests waited for things to start, an old-fashioned trolley pulled onto Horatio Street and models in white dresses stepped out and walked leisurely through the gates.
Each one took a loop around the fountain, just inches from where editors stood. It offered an up-close look at the detail in the clothes, particularly Rose’s signature pearl embroideries, and the subtle tweaks in fit and proportion. A model breezed by in the sleekest of ivory slips, turning to reveal a low back and a row of covered buttons; it wouldn’t be a Lela dress without a bit of that Old World refinement. A floaty Swiss dot minidress with a giant rosette was almost identical to a frock we saw in Rose’s ready-to-wear show in September, which nods to this collection’s bigger message: an embrace of individual, wear-as-you-like separates, designed more like a “fashion” collection than a bridal one.
Rose wants to dress her bride in a gown for her ceremony, but she also wants to provide the low-key pieces she might need for her many surrounding events: the engagement party, the rehearsal dinner, the reception, and maybe even the after-after-party (see the feathered miniskirt and silk cami). She’s preparing to open her first-ever bridal boutique in Dallas, where the full range of options will be available in one place. She’s calling it “ready-to-wed,” and it’s precisely how the rest of the bridal industry needs to shift in the next decade.
