The Old and the Beautiful: Vintage Gowns for Your Eco Wedding

ckane — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

For the green brides considering getting married in a vintage dress (ahem), I'm going to share my favorite vintage dress online shop, Posh Girl Vintage, who are about to relaunch next month with a makeover. When that happens, they'll be able to post new merchandise a lot faster.

I shouldn't encourage more people to look; it's just more competition for each unique dress. But here's the thing: it doesn't matter, because you probably won't get that dress you love anyway. There's only one of each (frustrating, but that's also the beauty of vintage) and usually every one I'm drooling over is already gone by the time I click the thumbnail.

No matter: It's wedding porn. Use this site for inspiration if you're designing your own dress, or when you see a to-die-for gown and it's tragically sold, put your bridesmaids and friends on alert if they're also into vintage. Maybe they'll see the kind you're looking for, or something along the same lines, in their own shopping travels.

Posh Vintage's tagline is "Dresses Audrey would love." Le sigh. It's times like these when I wish I still had a desk job and was browsing the Internet on somebody else's dime.

Image: Posh Girl Vintage

Design Your Own Eco Wedding Dress

ckane — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:00:00 -0400

I'm probably going with a vintage gown for my own wedding next year. But for brides wanting a custom-made gown, or if you don't want your bridesmaids to looks like carbon copies of each other but you still want them to match in gowns they like, Olivia Luca is easily the coolest resource for bridal and bridesmaid dresses I've found so far. You design your own dress using their website, and they have numerous sustainable fabric options.

Remember that game Fashion Plates, where little girls could design their own outfits and and color them in? Welcome to your online version of that game.

Olivia Luca's eco fabrics include organic cotton, hemp, hempcel (a hemp and tencel blend), bamboo/organic cotton knit, organic linen, some layered options, and coming soon, soy knit. They also have several printed organic cotton choices as well.

I'm going to try making a few gowns to see what the prices are like and will present this to my girls as an option. And it's not just because I really want to play with Olivia Luca's online dress designer. Really.

Image: Olivia Luca