Due to social distancing restrictions, brides across the world have had to put their dream weddings on hold or adapt to a very different experience.
When it comes to shopping for the perfect wedding dress, brides-to-be have missed out on in person fittings as well as the chats, tips, advice and support that they would usually get from bridal designers.
With all this in mind, Irish bridal designer Sharon Hoey has launched an exclusive online bridal collection which will offer a solution to all those COVID brides struggling with restrictions. We caught up with the entrepreneur to discuss her career longevity, Irish brides, and her new online collection.
Known as one of the most trusted bridal designers in Ireland, Hoey has been in business for almost 35 years and says that keeping the doors of her bridal boutique open during has been no mean feat.
Having originally specialised in evening wear, the designer says she has had to transform her business many times over in order to survive, and first found her niche in luxury bridal wear out of necessity:
"I would have done a lot of eveningwear, but when we hit the main recession in the 90s it was difficult to keep the business going," she tells me over the phone. "I had to sit down with my partner and figure out what we were going to do, and the only thing we could do was specialise within the luxury market, so we went with bridal and it took a few years to get it off the ground."
Realising that she needed to host a larger spread of styles to keep her buyers interested, Hoey began to buy in other designers to accompany her work in the early 2000s. From there the business went from strength to strength but, despite her on-going success, the Irish woman insists that business owners can never stop innovating.
"In the noughties, we had a big wholesale business where we exported our dresses to the UK on a very large scale, but that died with the crash. We had to do a re-think then, and at that point we opened up a second shop which went well."
"We're always in a state of looking to the future and seeing where we can go, and the obvious one now seems to be going online. It took some persuading in-house to get everybody on board but we have the time now, thanks to the closure, to get it launched and get it off the ground."
Named Pretty in Pink, the online bridal collection makes the Dublin boutique the first wholly Irish atelier to provide an online experience for brides. As the dresses are made in Ireland, shoppers can avoid any extra Brexit costs or delays that may come with pieces ordered from the UK or outside the EU.
However, as well as appealing to Irish-based brides, Hoey hopes to target Irish brides abroad:
"The diaspora is really where we're looking to," she says. "As we speak, we're searching through international bloggers, online magazines, Irish chambers of commerce, American-Irish chambers of commerce - this is the work we're doing at the moment and where we want to target."
"To be frank, we do approximately 20,000 weddings a year in Ireland," she adds.
Hoey has an impressive habit of listing statistics like she eats them breakfast. And she's right on the money. According to the Central Statistics Office, there were just 20,313 marriages across the island of Ireland in 2019.
With such a small market available to her, it makes sense that the designer would look to the vast diaspora of Irish women living across the globe to sustain her business. Keeping her far-reaching shoppers in mind, Hoey ensured to make her virtual consultation as user-friendly as possible.
To find the perfect fit, brides can order a cotton sizing toile to use at home to pre-fit their dress. Additionally, some pieces in the collection, which range from XXS – XL also come as separate pieces so that brides can choose different sizes for top and bottom in order to offer flexibility and secure the desired fit.
Whether they're getting married in a pandemic or not, every bride wants to find the perfect dress. To lend a helping hand to those preparing to walk down the aisle, we asked Hoey to break down the biggest trends in bridal wear for 2021.
"Fashion does change within bridal fashion," admits Hoey, "but it's quite subtle. The fuller skirted dress has been becoming pretty popular again, I see that as being the leader. Some people want that slim silhouette but will perhaps go for the big overskirt that they can then take off for the reception or later - that's been a big style for us."
"The dropped shoulder has been pretty big," she continued, "and the big plunging v-neck has been around now for quite a while, and I don't see it disappearing, it's very flattering. I do see it changing shape somewhat."
"The only major new neckline is the scoop, it's like a wide or square scoop. It's something that was around long time ago but maybe Bridgerton has brought it back. I've introduced the Flora dress (pictured below) with that kind of neckline."
"There's a lot of tulle and a lot of texture as well," adds Hoey. "Although I do like to think of myself as the queen of minimalism - the girls are sometimes begging me to add things to the dresses - I prefer a pared back look which I think keeps bringing people back to our store."
"Day two dresses are becoming more important," she continues. "That's the other reason we went online, a lot of our designs would be very suitable for a day two. That's become a little bit more wedding-y where as in the past it might have just been a nice dress or jeans. It's definitely become a more important day."
"We introduced our Gigi cigarette pants which are a little bit funky and nice for day two. There's a couple of other pieces that we're holding that will also be geared towards it."
For more information on Sharon's designs, visit her website here.
