Sewing up 'The Dress'

NEW YORK - In Suite 31A of the Waldorf-Astoria, Gillian Sleight is deciding what brides will wear next spring.

Could it be the Ines Di Santo "Mar" dress - strapless silk peau de soie with beaded appliques at the bust? "Gillian, I think this is a must," says Veronica Di Santo, the designer's daughter.

Could it be "Beth," another Di Santo strapless - silk gazar with feathers and pickups? "That's pretty, but I don't think it's us," says Sleight, 59, manager at the upscale Marlton boutique Bridal Garden.

As Di Santo takes her through the dresses, lobbying for each one, Sleight jots notes and sketches necklines. Even if she truly hates a gown, her face betrays nothing.

Veiled emotions are all part of the game at mid-October's Bridal Week, when nearly 2,000 retailers converge on Manhattan to attend the multivendor trade show at the Waldorf (run by WeddingChannel), take in runway shows, and arrange private buying sessions.

The elegant rooms filled with satin and tulle creations bespeak the serious money at stake. Weddings are a $160 billion industry, and finding the Holy Grail of dresses is Item No. 1 on most brides' countdown to "I do."

That's where high-end shops like Bridal Garden and rival Suky, in Ardmore, come in. The stores are two of the region's most exclusive tastemakers, interpreting trends and finding the gowns that will be walking down aisles next spring and summer.

"This is the largest contingent of bridal under one roof," says WeddingChannel Couture Show director Jane Heflin, who welcomed about a dozen Canadian manufacturers, seven Spanish designers, and nearly 100 international attendees to the Waldorf. "It's the best of the best coming to New York to show and buy and determine what will be on racks [this month]."

In a studio across town, Suky owner Mary Helen Ranieri, 44, considers the offerings at Reem Acra, one of the most coveted (and expensive) bridal dress designers.

That morning, Ranieri had a front-row seat for Reem's elaborate runway show (where gold-dusted cream puffs were served). Now she gets to see and touch the gowns on the rack, with a flurry of saleswomen, always dressed in black, at her feet.

For the buyers, variety is paramount - of styles, silhouettes and prices. Sample dresses are usually size 10, sometimes 12, but "a size 10 fits a 6," Ranieri says. The sizing, she says, is "way off."

At Reem, there's much discussion over how necklines and details can be altered for the customer. (At Suky, the typical bride spends about $300 on alterations.) A dress with an obi sash can be sold without it; extreme decolletage can be remedied with a triangular "modesty piece" to tone down the va-va-voom factor.

"I'm worried about the price point," Ranieri says upon seeing "Incredible," a strapless trumpet style with crystal-embroidered tulle overlay and a sweep train, with a suggested price tag of $11,000.

That's the customer price; bridal dresses are usually marked up two or three times the wholesale price. Still, this $11,000 dress costs Ranieri $5,200; once in the store, if a dress doesn't get many try-ons, owners will chalk it up to a poor choice, failed design or bad fit, and unload the sample at a discount.

Looking for her next best-seller, Ranieri fingers a section of the embroidery and turns to one of the women in black.

"I don't have a strapless, beaded, plain, simple A-line," she laments. "All the dresses I bought from last market were so elaborate or so embellished. I don't have what my girls call a 'dumb dress.' "

The "dumb dress," also known as the bread-and-butter dress, is a basic, pretty, strapless number. It's not very fashion-forward or risky, and it won't change your life, but it sells - a lot.

For Bridal Garden owner Nancy Saccomanno, 59, the current bread-and-butter dress is a $2,850 strapless, silk satin Anne Barge, with pickups and simple beading at the waist.

"[A bread-and-butter dress] has a little of everything going for it. It's for the average girl," Saccomanno says.

She's also doing well with Amsale's (pronounced Ahm-SALL-ah) strapless blue sash dress, at $2,750. Popular styles are carried over season to season, unlike most dresses, which stay on the racks for one season.

Bridal Garden is all soft Tuscan-style terra-cotta walls, but where are the dresses? They're tucked away in a stockroom - Badgley Mischka, Christos, Kenneth Pool, Amy Michelson and Romona Keveza, with an average price of $2,500 to $3,500 - and brought out after a sales consultation.

Despite the increasing number of Web-browsing brides, bridal salons are still big business. Brides may get ideas from magazines and the Internet, but the try-on, and what comes after it, is where the salons such as the Bridal Garden come in.

Getting the proper fit, thanks to expert alterations by on-site seamstresses, and having a point person (as opposed to just an order number and an 800 phone number) are invaluable. These days, the stores do run the risk that a bride will visit them for try-ons, then order online.

Saccomanno's and Ranieri's histories are intriguingly knotted. Saccomanno owned a lingerie shop in Voorhees in the late '80s when she got the idea to go into bridal. She rented a stately former real estate office building (which she now owns) in 1990 with her much younger partner, Ranieri. In February 2003, after a two-year legal battle for the store, Saccomanno bought Ranieri out.

Both women are tight-lipped on what precipitated the falling-out. "It was absolutely not amicable," Saccomanno says of the split. "I don't have ill will towards her," Ranieri counters.

Ranieri has rebounded in a big way. In January 2004, Suky Rosan, arguably the region's best-known bridal purveyor, died. A year later, Ranieri bought the store, and the rights to Rosan's name.

While Bridal Garden hides the gowns, Suky puts them out there. The 300 samples are in plain view, out of plastic, against a white-on-white backdrop.

"We hung the gowns like jewelry," Ranieri says. Since she took over, she has dropped Rosan from the name and further refined the customer. The new Suky bride, she says, is "an upscale bride who also comes to New York, who wants labels."

A Suky bride can spend up to $12,000 for The Dress, about $5,000 more than the priciest gown at Bridal Garden. The racks are stuffed with Monique Lhuillier, Carolina Herrera, Angel Sanchez, and Elizabeth Fillmore.

In the middle of one cloudlike row, organized by designer, Ranieri picks up her bread-and-butter dress: a plain Ulla-Maija silk satin strapless, with pickups and a row of buttons down the back ($4,200). She has sold at least 50.

At a mid- to low-end shop, or at a chain like David's, there are knockoff dresses to be had for a few hundred dollars. The difference is evident in the details: quality of fabric, beadwork or embroidery, the level of draping or ruching, and the lack of abundant seams - the hallmark of a cheaper gown. It's easy to see why the typical bride spends $1,000 on her dress; it's likely the most expensive dress she'll ever buy.

Then there's Vera Wang, the high-end bridal label. In a black-and-white Garment District showroom, Ranieri takes in Wang's three bridal lines. The price tags: $2,500 to $12,000.

For spring, the designer is showing washed taffetas, and a neat "dress on top of dress" effect, in which an embroidered or lace underlayer is veiled with a layer of tulle.

But Ranieri, who has the area-exclusive Wang shop-in-shop, is a bit concerned with all the flowy, unstructured silhouettes. Watching them go by, she predicts issues. "There's no support . . . which locks you into a small-busted girl." It's Wang's second "soft" collection in a row, she says, but she's committed to buy about $40,000 of the approximately $75,000 in dresses she sees today.

Sleight, at Bridal Garden, estimates she saw 500 gowns over three days. After consulting with Saccomanno, they bought about 135. Sleight predicts brisk sales for the new Monique Lhuilliers and Rivinis.

She expects the first shipment by Christmas, to greet a crop of newly ringed women (December is the engagement month), who will spend the rest of the winter fretting over French tulle and stressing over sweetheart necklines.

By spring, a new bread-and-butter dress will emerge.

Listen to local salon owners and top designers discuss bridal-gown trends at http://go.philly.com/bridalEndText