One very delicate, but dramatic detail, is the crystal embroidery. You can see it nestled into the waist in an organic shape, and it weaves around the waist and back, scintillating in a bed of tulle flower petals. This is a subtle adornment but it’s very powerful. It’s another fairy-tale charm.

The low ‘V’ cut back zooms in on the bride’s bare shoulder blades. This is such a sensual part of the view. I love an exposed back for weddings: if you can make it work, it’s so tender and feminine. Then you have the honeycomb tulle of the ballgown skirt, tacked in the front to give it a little bit of a peplum shape. It gives the whole dress some flounce and airiness, instead of a smooth drape. All in all, Kaitlin is a very soft and sweet gown.

“Over the moon to have dressed Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) for the Emmys. She is talent, elegance, beauty and chic personified!” XxVera

One of the themes of my collection this season is mystery: it’s always there for me when I’m working, because beauty itself is so mysterious. I love to design pieces that hide, that reveal, that stir our senses and our imaginations. With this collection, I wanted to invite my audience to experience the mysteries that lie beneath the surface. And of course, sometimes the best way to celebrate mystery is by reveling in lightness and frivolousness.

In this strapless mermaid gown – softly corseted that hugs and flatters the bride – you see this sense of movement and lightness most in the tumbled skirt. I wanted the skirt to be in constant motion. It’s airy and ethereal, and it sets off the classic silhouette of the mermaid gown very nicely: it’s quite a signature silhouette for me. The whole gown is enfolded with laddered fabric, which is a technique I love. It’s done in a pattern that swirls around and around the dress and then opens out as it descends – subtle but rapturous.

The skirt is a real confection. It’s got so many different tones playing together and shading in and out, and the textures are gorgeous. The crinkle tulle is also pleated in a leaf pattern, so it’s very textural. There’s something so delicate about it, that it almost takes your breath away. And at the same time it’s so full of free-flowing energies and just lots of frantic detail, racing away in every direction.

I love a frothy skirt paired with a more statuesque, classic bodice, because it’s a chance to marry the elegance of my more fashion-forward textures and patterns – like this laddered chiffon—with the lightness and whimsy of traditional bridal.

Joanna: Nude chiffon strapless mermaid gown with degradé laddering detail and tumbled tulle skirt | Collection: Vera Wang Fall 2012 Bridal | Photographer: Michael Beauplet

This mermaid gown is at the core of our Fall 2012 Collection: here you can see just how flirty a blushing bride might become with the right gown. I love this dress, not just because it’s got a very smart, streamlined construction, but also because it’s so sexy!
The stretch crepe hugs the figure and accentuates the curves – you have as much “va-voom” in the front as you do in the back. And in motion, it’s just delightful. It’s a seductive siren song. With just that little bit of ruffled tulle in the train, it’s like a grace note, a little bit of bubbly, flirtatious energy in the final glimpse of this bombshell bride.

This bustier in this dress is a new design we’re introducing. It’s a lingerie bustier with a soft stretch construction, so that although you have boning and support in the corset, it’s mobile and it hugs the body, it’s flexible. So it sculpts, without being rigid. As you can see, those curves make quite a bold statement.

Meanwhile, the asymmetrical draping, which you see gathered across the curves of the body, and over one shoulder, gives the gown an iconic, classic glamour. The way the draping contrasts against the rest of the gown, it’s like bold strokes with a paintbrush. This is a gown that’s definitely red-carpet ready, and I love how much of a presence it has to it. This dress an absolute celebration of the feminine figure.

Jane: One shoulder soft mermaid gown with asymmetrical gathering and ruffled tulle train | Photographer: Michael Beauplet

Which one is your fave?

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Red for fun. Red for love. Red forever! – Vera Wang.

Here, Rebecca Moses beautifully illustrates Look 5 from the runway - Dahlia mermaid gown with chevron pleated bodice and pleated tulleskirt with hand-rolled floral appliqué shoulder detail.

Hilary is really a work of art, because there are so many layers of the most exquisite laces all mended together, creating a really rich texture. It’s like putting on a Rolls Royce!

Even though Hilary’s silhouette is column-like, very sleek and streamlined, there are so many different elements in this dress; it’s a collage. Every single piece of this dress is made with a different kind of texture. But everything is combined so beautifully, so that you get a lot of detail that comes through in the layers, while still appearing very seamless and crisp overall.

You can see this especially in the train of the dress: how there’s just so much richness that shines through all the various levels. The train is layered with a new type of lace that we’re calling “honeycomb Chantilly.” It’s a Chantilly lace pattern with big, almost diamond-shaped holes. And then you have re-embroidered lace with Guipure lace on top of that, as well as an array of floating organza floral sprigs very gently drifting, almost like blossoms in a bowl of water.

Because lace is so thick by nature, when you use a lot of different laces you have to be really careful about the way in which you mend them together. You don’t want to end up with a lot of bulk and heaviness—especially when using a denser lace like Guipure, even the exaggerated, blown-up version of it that I used here. That’s why I varied the amount of Guipure lace as you move from top to bottom. At the bodice, it’s very dense, and then gradually it disperses.

This is definitely a dress for the Romanticist who still wants to be modern—it’s opulent, but understated.

Browse the Spring 2012 Bridal Collection

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It’s been some time since I’ve used Guipure lace, the focal point of Henriette. Guipure was invented in France in the mid-19th century, so it’s historically appropriate for Spring. In creating this collection, I was very inspired by the turn-of-the-century ballet and the glitter of the Paris Opera, and especially the great paintings of dancers by Degas. His eye for the delicate transparencies and tonalities of the young women’s costumes, and his passion for movement and spectacle, gave me some of the themes for this season’s designs.

Guipure is a very unique type of lace, and it’s so much denser than most laces—in fact, it almost resembles linen—and so it demands a very delicate arrangement to keep it from looking too heavy or too old-fashioned. But this season, I felt we came up with just the right pattern for it. When you have the proportions right, it’s fantastic, and I love how bold and dense the flower imagery becomes, here. It’s quite modern.

Another aspect of this dress, which is very artfully done, is how it engages with a traditional, turn-of-the-century idea of the bride as modest and blushing. You’ll notice something here that stands out in my collections: a high neck! The high-neck and cap-sleeves combination is a very formal, very traditionalist look, which you don’t see too often these days. That’s why I chose to bring it back!

This more traditional top is counterbalanced by a very flouncy, organic skirt. I used horsehair to frame all of these swirling, confection-like layers of honeycomb tulle, to pump them up with that weightless volume. It’s the perfect contrast to the bodice: I always like to play with that tension between two different aesthetics, something voluptuous and organic meeting up with something else that’s refined and elegant.

There’s an edginess to appearing in something that’s so unabashedly traditional: when you filter this classic “belle epoque” Parisian look, and this tradition of modesty through a very modern aesthetic, it’s striking, and it’s distinctive. It’s my way of bringing the 21st century around to meet the end of the 19th, and it’s the energy and inspiration from that meeting that fuels so much of this Spring collection.

Browse the Spring 2012 Bridal Collection

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With all of its opulent lace and flounce, Helena is a very Traditionalist ballgown, suffused with a grand romantic air.

Three different types of handmade Chantilly lace were incorporated into this gown, and I designed each lace pattern specially: they’re unique to this dress.  With Helena, as with other dresses in my Luxe collection, I’ve used different infusions of laces, all with different densities, to give the dress a full, three-dimensional presence. Chantilly is the most delicate of all the laces, but you can also create enormous variety and contrast with it. Here in Helena, there may be a thicker cord outlining all of the shapes, or you might find a bigger flower, or in other cases, a very small, tight flower pattern.

Each of these laces is made the traditional way, by hand, then it’s cut apart into smaller pieces and floated throughout the dress, again by hand. Anything that is done by hand can never be exactly the same as the one that came before it; it’s like a snowflake. Helena really is couture, in the true sense of the word.

You don’t often find all-over lace construction in bridal gowns, and Helena is especially unique. The different layers and patterns of lace have been fitted together and inter-related with tremendous care, so that you’re encountering all the individual facets of the lace patterns—the rose bloom, the bud—as they emerge, and fall away, and shine through again.

The vast volume of tulle that makes up the cage of the gown is what we call honeycomb tulle, because of its more open, almost diamond-like perforations. It lends a beautiful airiness and flounce. And when you notice the different horsehair-framed tiers of the dress, you can see how much lace is scattered throughout, accented by organza crystal sprig appliques. The patterns move, and the depth and the light are constantly creating different effects of transparency and diaphanousness.

Meanwhile, on the bodice, the lace floats up, up, to the neckline, where there’s a cut tulle element that frames the neck and sounds that note again of the floral pattern, ever so delicately, against her skin. Then in the back of the gown, where it all becomes symmetrical, there’s a side-swept gather, creating a tiered bustle effect, right out of the glorious gowns of the opera, which is absolutely delicious and is just icing on the cake.

Browse the Spring 2012 Bridal Collection

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What’s so attention-grabbing about this dress is the bodice. It’s done with a hand-engineered fabric technique called “sunburst pleating.” What that means is we took a very lightly-pleated fabric, and swirled it all around the bodice, lightly but with precision, finally bringing it to that asymmetrical accent at the shoulder. The whole layer of material is in motion. The hand-engineered sunburst in the bodice is that resplendent touch that gives this gown its over-the-top sumptuousness. To me this pleating also evokes the strokes of a paintbrush: you get a sense of the artist’s hand, working through the design, capturing light and movement and rhythm.

The skirt is built of from multiple layers of tulle, so it has that lighter-than-air quality that transforms the figure of the bride into a figure that’s almost like something out of myth. You can see that the tulle is cut for a high-low, contrasting effect: the layers come up higher in front and toward the back of the dress they come down further and further, very softly descending, as though she’s stepping out of a morning mist. And that’s where our pageant begins!

Hazel is very much a dress for someone who embraces fashion. This might be the choice for a bride who’s very taken with the theatrical side of her ceremony, who wants to be the star of her show. There’s definitely a little of the opera costume here, or the dramatic soloist’s costume. It’s so bold and show-stopping, it’s such a vivid statement of personality. I love creating gowns like these.

Browse the Spring 2012 Bridal Collection

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