Shopping for your bridal wear can be an exciting, yet often overwhelming, experience. With so many stunning designs, it’s easy to get lost in the aesthetics without fully understanding what goes into creating that perfect gown. This blog aims to demystify one of the most important elements of bridal fashion: wedding dress fabrics.
The Importance of Understanding Wedding Dress Fabrics
This guide will provide you with an overview of the various fabrics we offer. Our goal is to empower you with the knowledge needed to articulate your vision, enabling you to better describe what you truly envision for your dream wedding day.
Mikado
Mikado is a luxurious, structured fabric with a crisp yet substantial feel and a subtle, elegant sheen. We love it for the way that it holds its shape beautifully, which makes it remarkably resistant to wrinkles. This unique combination makes mikado an easy choice for our more structured bridal wear, as its weave is perfect for creating architectural silhouettes like a dramatic ballgown wedding dress or modern mermaid wedding dress. We currently offer two types of mikado: a Plain Mikado and a Shimmering Mikado.
Our Plain Mikado is in a silk-polyester blend, which helps with both breathability and wrinkle resistance. “Silk white” is the name for the standard mikado color we use across the collections. It’s also available in over 20 colors. So, this is a great fabric choice if you envision a wedding dress in a color other than silk white (like Peri).
If you like the volume that mikado gives but want a little something extra, we also have our Shimmering Mikado. This fabric is more lightweight than our plain mikado, but its uniqueness lies in the woven metallic strands that add a beautifully shimmering effect to the fabric. This effect is like having the sparkle of glitter fabric without the mess and micro pollutants. Our Shimmering Mikado is in the color “Latte,” which helps neutralize the silver sheen from the metallic strands.
Jacquard
In general, a jacquard fabric features beautiful patterns woven directly into the fabric itself unlike a fabric with a printed design. The pattern isn’t just a surface decoration; it’s a part of the fabric’s structure. It gives the fabric a luxurious feel, a lovely drape, and a unique, sophisticated dimension that really makes a statement.
Our Floral Jacquard and Dot Jacquard fabrics are similar in weight and sheen to our Plain Mikado, but it’s their patterns that set them apart. This means a stock style can be customized by swapping the Plain Mikado for the Floral Jacquard or Dot Jacquard.
Crepe
Crepe is a wonderfully versatile fabric known for its distinctive matte finish, pebbled texture, and lovely drape. It’s usually lightweight with a soft, flowing feel, making it incredibly comfortable to wear. We particularly love crepe for creating drapey silhouettes that beautifully skim the body, offering a sleek and sophisticated look without being overly structured.
At Edith Élan, we offer crepe in two unembellished options: a luxurious 100% silk or our Eco-Italian crepe. The Eco-Italian Crepe is made from sustainably harvested and recycled synthetic fibers, which provides an eco-conscious choice with the same beautiful qualities as the Silk Crepe. However, unlike the Silk Crepe, our Eco-Italian crepe is only available in three colors: white, silk white (our standard color), and light ivory. Whereas, the Silk Crepe is available in over 90 colors.
Our embellished crepe is a Floral Jacquard Crepe, which is not to be confused with the Floral Jacquard previously mentioned. The Floral Jacquard Crepe is a crepe fabric with a subtle cascading floral pattern woven directly into it.
Organza
Imagine a fabric that’s incredibly lightweight, sheer, and has a beautiful crispness to it. That’s organza! It’s traditionally made from silk and loved for how it allows light to pass through, creating a soft, ethereal glow. We adore organza because its slight stiffness allows us to craft gowns with wonderful volume and structure without being heavy. It’s perfect for creating dreamy, airy skirts, delicate overlays, or even statement sleeves that hold their shape beautifully, adding a touch of sophisticated romance to your wedding day look.
We offer two types of organza: silk organza and silk gazar organza. Both of these fabrics are sheer and lightweight; however, silk gazar organza has more body (aka is less sheer) and sheen. Organzas are great for accent fabrics, as well as, the entire dress. For example, we used silk gazar to make Monarca’s iconic butterflies that flutter delicately with every movement.
Lace
When you think of bridal wear, lace is probably the first fabric that comes to mind, and for good reason – it’s incredibly iconic and traditionally romantic. Lace is essentially a fabric created by looping, braiding, or twisting threads into an open, web-like pattern. The patterns can range from delicate, barely-there designs to more intricate and textural motifs.
We love lace for its ability to add unparalleled elegance, femininity, and a touch of vintage charm. Whether it’s on an entire gown, highlighting specific details, or creating stunning sleeves, it adds a texture in a way that other wedding dress fabrics can’t. When it comes to our lace offerings, you’ll find more unique and unexpected patterns than traditional motifs.
Tulle
You’re probably familiar with plain tulle – that wonderfully sheer, lightweight fabric that gives bridal gowns such a dreamy, ethereal feel. It’s often used to create gorgeous, voluminous skirts that float as you walk. It’s truly a magical fabric for building soft layers and adding that romantic touch without any added weight. Besides using it for volume, plain tulle is often used as the base for embroideries. We also offer a variety of skin tone shades for a truly illusion look if that is what you desire.
But beyond just plain tulle, you’ll also discover our embellished tulles. Our Pearl Net features delicate pearls scattered for a subtle, luminous shimmer. Similarly, our Pearl and Crystal Net uses a combination of pearls and crystals for that extra sparkle and undeniable “wow” factor. Our Swiss Dot Net is like the jacquard fabrics in that the pattern is in the fabric. But unlike the pearl nets, it’s a light and airy tulle netting that adds visual interest and texture with its dots.
Reminders about Wedding Dress Fabrics
Here are two important things to remember about wedding dress fabrics:
- Most fabrics are dyed to achieve the color that you see. As a result, there can be slight variations between dye lots. This means that a swatch or a sample dress that you see in a bridal boutique may differ slightly in color from your dress.
- Over time and especially with age, wedding dress fabrics may yellow or become more fraglie. This is especially true of delicate materials such as silk, but it can happen with even synthetics as well. As a result, the color and feel of your bridal wear five, ten, twenty or more years from now may not be exactly as it was on your wedding day. But, it will still be your cherished garment. It’ll just have history and stories to tell.
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Behind the Seams, Bridal Shopping Tips + Advice