For any bride-to-be, the wedding day is a moment of immense joy and anticipation. Every detail, from the exquisite dress…
On this week's episode, we are wrapping up with our last 3 designers. Co-hosts Tash and Kass finish discussing with you all about their amazing designers in the store. This is part two of two (go back and listen to part one from last week) for the previous designer context. This episode covers designers Julie Vino from Israel, Amy Mair Couture from Wales, U.K. and Claire Pettibone from L.A. Learn how these amazing designers not only fit into our VA Bridal family, but all of the amazing ways they are helping our brides (and our globe!)
*Since recording this episode we are no longer carrying the collection 'Innocentia'. We are now bringing into store all of Julie Vino Collections--Julie Vino Couture, Romanzo & Mimosa*
Listen to "Episode 3--Introducing Our Designers Part 2" on Spreaker.Have questions or episode ideas? Email us at info@va-bridal.com
Our favorite day of the week because we can do fun stuff like this without having to get ready for the day.
So true. I get paid to wear sweats. Woo.
Right? It's like the panini all over again.
Let's be real else I wore scrubs through the panini.
It's true, you did. I wore sweats and consumed copious amounts.
Of alcohol and coffee.
And coffee. It was coffee with alcohol in it.
Yes.
And then it was some water and then more alcohol.
Baileys or Kahlua?
Usually we have Bailey's in the house more. Sean's not a kahlua guy.
Makes sense.
Yeah. But since I can't have normal Bailey's because it's got, like, milk in it, we have to get the almond milk based Bailey's, which Sean doesn't mind it because he likes almond flavoring.
There you go.
Me, on the other hand, I'm like, it's not creamy. It's like watery to me.
Anything nut milk is weird to me when I drink, just if it's plain, I don't like the feeling of drinking like a juiced nut. It's weird. I'm like, I should be chewing this right now, but if I'm not, I.
Never got on the bandwagon with almond milk.
Yeah, I can't.
I like my oat milk. It's creamy.
The only thing outside of normal milk I love is lactaid.
I like the fair life more than lactaid. That's usually what I have in the house.
It makes sense.
But I'm not a milk person, so it works out. That's why I'm like, if it's gonna be creamy, at least let it be boozy. But, you know, my body decided, that dairy was not in the cards for me. So are you ready to talk about the remainder of our designers?
Yes.
In a somewhat brief overview, I'm curious how the last episode sounds when I edit, because based on how much scrolling I was doing to get to the beginning of it, I'm like, we had a long tangent, which we're starting off strong with again today.
Sure. But just makes us normal.
Are we normal?
No.
No. Okay. As long as we're on the same page.
We both know that.
All right, our friends and patrons, we are going to start talking about our next designer, Miss Julie Vino. So I put her in part two. She is sort of a part of the originals. I did bring her on right as we opened the store. And our rep is actually the one who found me and reached out, which is what most designer reps do. They really keep an eye out for any possible new shops or just shops they've never had contact with. Usually reach out, part of the job. But it was exciting when they reached out before I opened and we kind of talked through all the logistics. I was excited to have a designer from Israel because there's so many big designers from Israel right now.
Not only that, the Israeli lace that comes out of that country is so pretty guys.
It's so mesmerizing. And like I said, most people know the names, like Galia Lahav, Berta, Pnina Tornai. So if you are into bridal styles, bridal trends, and you recognize those names, you know they are notorious for sheer, which is weird. You would think Israelis would be very conservative because of like the Muslim and Jewish, Jews, all of the religion there. But they like to barely cover. And I mean literally barely cover.
There are times where it's like not even covering.
Yeah, there's dresses and pictures that definitely don't look sheer cause, you know, photoshop.
Yup.
And then they come in store after we've ordered and you try it on to see what it's like and you can see all of your bits and pieces.
Absolutely.
Which, you know what? If you have that confidence, I say rock it.
Absolutely.
I would be like as white as a ghost walking out in public with something that's fully sheer.
Like just me.
On the other hand, Kass would be.
Like, hey, I'm pasties and I'm set.
You can wear it to EDC.
Oh, yeah. Well, EDC has an area where you can get married. Do they really?
How cute. We need to do a photo shoot at EDC.
That would be fun.
That would be really fun.
Yeah, they've got different little aisle setups and a bunch of different sermons. I have a video of this cute girl and these gorgeous bedazzled heels marrying these people. But it's actual marriage at EDC. That's so cool.
Yeah, I feel like Julie Vino stuff would match that aesthetic.
Oh, yeah.
Because it's got a lot of really cool structure, a lot of really pretty details. They go from anywhere from, like I said, the sheer flowy fabrics to super glittery. But our Miss Julie Vino, so we carry her collection called Mimosa, as well as their kind of sister company in, the LLC of Julie Vino called Innocentia. And the mimosa's are made in Tel Aviv, whereas Innocentia is actually made in a completely different country. They are made in Ukraine. So just like our Tanya Grig designer and a lot of her style is just very classic. She has a lot of classic silhouettes. She's really into classic details, but she just adds a lot of embroidery, a lot of like if you want everything in a dress, you can usually find it with them.
Oh, yeah.
So one cool thing about their Mimosa gown's too, is we are able to do a lot of customization. The Innocentia ones are a little bit more considered like a mainstream. So you're going to order things maybe with the sleeve or without kind of basic changes. But if it's Mimosa line that is made in Israel, we have their measurement sheets we can kind of fully customize. So we have had brides who have loved some of their detachable sleeve options that we've added to gowns. They can make capes, they can take a top and a bottom and kind of blend them together if need be.
They can take their bodysuit or change.
It to lining, I'm sure, all the way up to the waistline lake slick. Because we definitely have gowns with those.
Oh, yeah. So some risky ones. If you turn yes.
If you turn wrong, you will flash everybody.
Oh, yeah.
But we absolutely love having our Julie Vino gowns in store. Like I said, just with her classic style, with modern touch. She's really great. If you are a bride who is obsessed with those mainstream designers, like I said, like Berta or Galia Lahav, but you can't necessarily afford the price. Her Mimosa collection is in the more reasonable price range for couture gowns. So she's definitely the cost effective way to get the high end look, which is what we love. But yeah, she's been with us since the beginning as well. We are super grateful to them.
Yeah. And you get exactly what those other high end designers that you recognize names and half the cost.
Yeah. Which is always one of our favorite things. But like we've said in the other episode, we'll definitely have links in our show notes where you can go to each of our designer pages on our website to kind of view a little bit about them, as well as you can look them up on their socials, on their own websites. But at least knowing the collections we carry, if we are close to you and you love either of the innocentia's or the mimosa line's, we got you, girl.
And if you guys ever have questions and want to know more, feel free to DM us or our general email is on our website and we are more than happy to answer any questions. Look into dresses that you are interested of our designers and we're always willing to help you guys out. Yeah.
Even if we don't have that specific dress in store. One, if I am a retailer of them, I can always order it for you. Two. We will look at the style of the dress you are obsessing over, find that designers gowns that are going to fit similar, so you can understand the way the shape is, the way the material might feel, even if it's not the exact one. A lot of designers not necessarily always repurpose patterns, but it is more cost effective to slightly update a current pattern than completely make a new one. So we can always try on what we've got and then still order the dress that you love.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. A dude just walked up to the door and was looking at me and I was like, I don't know if we locked the front door.
I don't think I did it's. Fine.
While you get started on the next designer, I'm going to get up and lock the front door. Okay.
Just don't forget you got headphones on your head so you don't like, pull yourself and walk away.
I know.
All right, so why Kass goes and locks the front door real quick. So the next designer I wanted to bring up is one of the newer ones we brought on at our one year last year that we were so excited to announce. Her name is Amy Mair and she owns Amy Mair Couture which is a company based in Wales. Let me tell you, whenever she puts up pictures of her space there, it's like right on the water. It's by an old little castle. I don't know if I'm going to pronounce it. Is it Cardiff?
I don't know.
I don't know.
As much as I love that area, I'm not really familiar with that.
We're not from there. So if we happen to reach anybody who is well versed in how to say this, please let me know.
Please.
So Amy Mair is a designer that I had found a couple of years ago on my personal page before the store ever opened. And I started following her on my personal Instagram. She was suggested for me because Instagram knows its algorithm. It knows that it's the bridal. So everything I see is somehow wedding related in whatever direction that may be. And her gowns are just so ethereal.
And so dreamy whimsical running through a castle vibe.
Very delicate, real life fairy tale. Yeah. We are absolutely obsessed with her.
And guys, the coolest thing for me to always say and preach, we are the only stockist of hers in North and South America.
It's true. Like, the only ones.
The only one.
And my favorite is when people call us to ask questions on her because they found her on Instagram or Pinterest. Her pins went nutty on Pinterest.
Oh, yeah.
And when people track it back to us, because most of the time, if they can at least find the designer page, most people reach out straight to the designer. And really good designers do the job of saying, hey, I absolutely would love to help you. Why don't you reach out to my stockist at this store? Because they are closest to you and they can help you in person with measurements in this. And that's how we get sometimes some of our brides who reach out to us because Amy referred them back. But when they find out Utah, it's like I don't even know how to describe it. They just have this blank look, I would assume on their face. Basically, they're not confused.
One thing that they'd find are probably like California, New York, chicago.
Yeah. Somewhere that sounds fancy. But I promise, guys, if you've not.
Been to South Jordan, Utah, south Jordan.
Utah is one of the people would like to say bougier areas and Draper. So we're in a more affluent area of Utah. But you know what? Utah is getting on the map, and we're here to help put it on the map.
Sometimes us getting on the map is not good, but we're trying to go for the good.
For the good. Absolutely. So when I started following Amy Mair, I fell in love. Like I said, with her attention to detail, she's very much a romantic mindset when she designs. Like, you look like a heroine of your own little love story. And who doesn't want to feel that way on their wedding day, right? So as time went on, she started following the shops page after I don't even know how long. So the little kid inside of me was really giddy that this designer I love on the other side of the country is obsessed with us. Or that was the assumption I made, because why else would you follow me? But she is the sweetest human, her. And I started emailing.
She's so precious.
I know. Started emailing only a couple of months into the shop opening. She knew she wanted to start expanding outside of the UK and kind of get more into other areas of the world. She doesn't want to outgrow the production team. She has she doesn't want to end up doing factory work where you're whipping out as many dresses as possible.
Yeah. She has picked her team wisely and she love and appreciates every single one of them and she doesn't want to overdo that and outwork them.
Absolutely. And she's a part of the process. She does the designing herself, she does a lot of patterning. She helps make the brides dresses. And those are little things that I love because she is a working manager and being a working manager is just you give your employees such great skill set, you are showing your passion and it's authentic. You don't come off as a money hungry, snooty boss.
It really shows the love and appreciation and dedication you have not only to your work, but also to your employees.
Yeah. So with Ms Amy Mair, she's considered bespoke, which is very much a European term, which is the same word as custom, couture where they use the machine to do stitching, but they also do a lot of hand work.
Yeah. And they can do not do but they can do anything. But they're willing to do a lot of things to customize the gown for the bride.
Yes. And that's why I knew she'd be a great fit, because her aesthetic didn't really match any of the other designers we had. She was very unique, very niche, but she could still do customization. So if we had any religious brides that need things adjusted or brides who just wanted to maybe take a top and a bottom, put them together or like the concept but wants to update it a little bit, we have the ability to. So since we are the only ones over here, it's something that you will not be able to find in any other store. So, again, if you're really looking for that unique one-of-a kind, something that very few people globally have, and you love that romantic garden whimsical castle running aesthetic, miss Amy Mair's for you.
Yeah. And you guys should go look at her stock photos. These things are stunning. Jaw dropping and just impeccable again.
They look like storybook pictures.
Oh, yeah.
They're just so pretty.
I wish I could go to the locations where she took these photos.
Yes. Someday we will.
We'll get out there.
We'll get there someday. So before we move on from her, the last thing I want to touch on is Amy Mair is a fully sustainable and ethically sound brand, which means she has a no waste policy. So any of her unused samples are donated to a local charity. She also pledges to recycle one of her dress from each collection a year. She wants to be able to reduce, reuse, and recycle materials because most materials do not disintegrate back.
Decompose.
Decompose. Thank you. I'm like what's the word I'm looking for Monday mornings, guys.
True.
So they don't decompose. Well, most materials now are a lot of man-made. Just because it's synthetic. Yeah, it's cheaper. It's quicker to kind of, I don't know, I guess make it more malleable. You can really create a material now to do whatever you want if you have a concept of how you want it to fold, how you want it to drape, the color of the material, the sheen of the material. Man made is great for that reason, because now we have so much advanced technology, we can really create anything. But when you take the time to find materials that are a little bit more natural, like, she's got this beautiful silk velvet that we love. It's just the softest thing in the world.
She would be willing to make bedsheets for me or a jumpsuit. Hit me up, Amy. I'll be in contact with you.
Right. But she really takes the time to understand not only her brides, but how she can help make the world a better place in designing. Because we know there's a lot more conscious brides now who are thinking of second hand gowns, maybe renting, because they don't want to add to all of the waste that our planet is filling up with. So if you are looking for sustainability, that is one beautiful thing about Amy Mair, is she's really conscious of the amount of material she's using and everything. So if you still want something special for you, but you want to help make a difference on our planet, her gowns are a great way to go.
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely. So, like we said, we will have a link to her if you want to check out more information. But I guarantee you, if you go to your Pinterest board, majority of you probably at least at least saved one or two of her gowns.
Oh, absolutely. And if you guys are trying to plan a wedding, go ahead and check out our Pinterest. I try to get a lot of stuff up there for ideas not only just wedding dresses, I've done bouquets and mood boards and cakes suits, I think. Yeah. So go ahead and head on over there, follow us and save all the pins you like. And if you see anything, let me know.
Yeah. If you have suggestions on areas you need more inspiration on or help planning, we'll do what we can to get you the resources to make it as easy as possible.
Absolutely.
His wedding planning should not be stressful, guys. It can get stressful, emotional.
Especially in Utah. They like to get themselves three to four months of planning if we're lucky. I can't even, like, plan in that amount of time, guys.
I can't even plan like a party at my house in that amount of time because I'm like, oh, I need to find the most optimal day to get majority of people there. Oh, I also need to set money aside because now I want to buy a crap ton of food for all these people and booze.
Yes. So I don't get it.
I don't get it. But everybody does things differently. And if that's what they're used to, they can knock it out of the park.
Have at it.
All right, everybody. So our last designer and our newest that I'm so excited to also talk about is Miss Claire Pettibone. So, again, if you guys are into bridal designers and styles, I'm sure her name will sound super familiar. The Miss Clare Pettibone is an L.A. based brand. Again, another bespoke customizable designer. She has all the options from, like I said, customizing tops, skirts, combination of one to another, blended together colors. She's got all sorts of colorful silk linings in her couture styles. She's got a couple different options in the crepe linings for her romantique collection which is kind of the more attainable for the everyday bride. And then her couture ones are a little bit more for those bougie brides who really want to invest the money into a really nice handmade piece.
Oh, yeah.
But even in her couture pricing, she's got some really fabulous prices.
Oh, yeah.
So at least in store, we don't have anything over like 6000 retail of hers. She has started kind of trickling into higher price points in this last year. But with her craftsmanship, it doesn't surprise me that the gowns have the prices they do. Her material, all of her appliques are handmade. Like she designs them. They use a lot of natural fibers so that they can do dye lot of them to get the right coloring. And then it's all hand embroidered or majority of her material is made in Paris.
And they're so soft and so comfy.
They are. And just so beautiful. They're very lightweight because she has a very vintage style. Kind of like Eliza Jane Does where you can kind of see the old world vintage styling. But instead of being ornate beating, she is colorful in her appliques, in her linings, in her trims. So even though she kind of fits a vintage esthetic, it's opposite. I feel like she's somewhere in between Eliza Jane and Amy Mair.
Absolutely. I was going to say that.
Yeah. So that's the fun thing is even though those three have similar concepts, they each execute it differently.
Oh, yeah. And with Claire, it is a higher price point at times, but you truly are getting what you pay for when it comes to wedding dresses.
Absolutely. And that's something that I like to promote because I understand staying within your budget, and you always should. We will always honor your budget. We will always pull a gown within your budget after we've exhausted those options is when we ask permission first, before we even visually show you again to pull something over budget that we feel will match what you're looking for.
Absolutely.
But if you are planning ahead of time and you can set up a payment plan, you can achieve the dress of your dreams without feeling like you're going to break the bank because you're purging all this cash up front.
Yeah.
So we'll be here to help in that process.
We always recommend highly, highly recommend doing research before you set your budget with a wedding dress. And if you have a budget, do your research on the stores you want to go to and make sure that they've got a decent amount of gowns in your price point.
Absolutely. Don't ever feel embarrassed by your price point, but also be understanding if a store is unable to service you because they don't have anything in that price. It's not that they don't value you as a possible customer. They just have a target market of clients they are trying to reach based on the gowns they bring in their store. So at least back with Claire. She is a U.S. based designer and also produces her gowns in the US. In L.A. In her atelier that she has named the Castle.
And it looks like a castle.
It does. It's a historic 1920s building in downtown L.A. And it was one of her favorites to visit when she was a child. She was telling me about it when I went there in March, and as soon as it went up as vacant, she kind of told her husband, guess what, babe, we're moving the store. And he's like, sorry, we're doing what now?
And her husband is just the sweetest thing. He's probably like, all right, I'm packing now.
Yeah, I mean, listen, my husband, like I mentioned before, he aspires to be Claire's husband Guy or Wendy's husband Jared with Elizabeth Lee. My husband wants to be all in here at the business with me. He wants to help make pretty dresses. He wants to not go to his nine to five job anymore. He wants to fully invest in this.
And you could tell when we're trying to figure out what gowns to bring in that he gets a little excited, like you can see it.
Yes. I mean, he gets excited off my excitement, but then I'm like, hey babe, you want to look at pretty dresses with me? So he's got the kids to bed, pour a glass of wine and look at pretty dresses. Which is exactly what we did with Claire. He's the one who encouraged me to reach out to her. She had used to be at a different bridal salon here in Utah years ago. They rebranded, they're a lot more modern in aesthetics. So her vintage style very much did not match the clientele that the owners who had taken over at that time were going for. For me, it worked out because I have loved her my whole life. Before she started in Bridal in 2005, she had launched her original designs in lingerie, which was in like Saks, Neiman Marcus. She was in very high end stores just very much. If you think of 90s sexy vintage lingerie that people would like piece together to wear out on the town, like when I think of Sex in the City, honestly, whenever Sarah Jessica Parker would wear lingerie-esque items, but made them somehow everyday clothes, oh, yeah, that's how I always envisioned Claire's stuff.
And when her stuff was coming out, I was in elementary school in the then going into junior high, so I very much was not the target market for her. That's okay, that's okay. I still loved it. And then when she made bridal gowns in 2005, I was in my junior year of high school. Yes, junior year. I had to think back how long ago that was and I kept telling myself, OK, if I don't get a Vera Wang gown, I'm going to get a Clare Pettibone. Didn't get either. That's okay, I can always wear it someday when I convince my husband to renew vows. Was yours? Yeah, mine was the watters, but it was watters and watters. Or WTOO. The Watters was kind of like her main label and then WTOO was.
Like the branch off.
The branch off. So we are ecstatic that we have Claire now in our store. Her gowns are exquisite. You can see the options we have in store on our website, as well as the portal link you get from us when you book an appointment to your own custom little closet of our inventory. And we are so excited to bring on more dresses of hers down the road. We did bring in three couture styles, three Romantiques, so we kind of hit the mark anywhere from high 2000 into high 5000, almost 6000 price point. So we have a full encompass of pricing. Like I said, you can customize, there's all sorts of pattern fees that we can do to kind of really get you the gown that you want as well as she does. Split sizing. I am much more of like a pear shape where I've got a curvier bottom half than I do on the top. And so, for me, the split size patterning is like Chef's Kiss, because I can get what fits my bust and waist better versus my hips, but it all blends together into one.
Oh, yeah.
So if you have further questions on her, like we said before, feel free to reach out. We're hoping down the road to do individual episodes with each of our designers where we can kind of interview them, give them the opportunity to talk about their passions, their why's, who their brides are, just so you can fall in love with them as much as we have and understand why their designs and their styles match our concept of everybody is a bridal body.
Yeah.
So, as I was saying, if we know ahead of time that there's a certain style with our designers, like Claire Pettibone, Elizabeth Lee, I'm drawing a blank right now on anyone else. I feel like those are our main two that we can for sure get samples from because their flagship stores are here US. Based, so they have those gowns usually in their shops. So if we get a heads up, I can get it on loaner for your appointment, so you can try it on. Also, if you give yourself plenty of time to plan, always keep an eye out for trunk shows because that's when we will have a big selection of their current styles in store, which is something we'll do. An episode on is kind of explaining the benefits of a trunk show and why you may want to wait to come in when it's a trunk show.
Yeah, because there's even a trunk show price.
Yeah. There's prices. There's incentives. There's the ability to meet the designer themselves. So it'll be a lot of fun to dive into that. And we do actually have one coming up here at the end of September with Elizabeth Lee. So we'll try to convince our designer, Mr. Jared, who will be coming in person, to participate in this a little bit. If we can. If we have hopefully, if not, we'll get him and Wendy on FaceTime or however they do it from a distance.
Yeah, we should probably look into that.
We should probably look into that. Guys, we're newbies here, so any advice?
We'll gladly because I do know having Wendy just the main designer, would just be amazing. Yeah.
Because she can tell her story. Jared can tell that story.
Oh. Back of his hand.
But it's fun to hear from all, I guess, viewpoints.
Yeah.
All right, guys. Well, thanks for joining us for episode three as we kind of finished recapping our designers. We're so excited to talk to you guys more about all things wedding related.
I love it. And just remember that everybody is a.
Bridal body, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye.
ALL ARE WELCOME, CELEBRATED + ACCEPTED.
