Mom has warning for those seeking bridal gowns online - WXYZ Detroit |
- Mom has warning for those seeking bridal gowns online - WXYZ Detroit
- This company wants to move custom wedding-dress shopping online. Is the bridal-shop trip with besties in trouble? - The Washington Post
- Dozens of wedding and prom dresses stolen from Cedar Rapids shop - Radio Iowa
- Site offers customized wedding gowns in a few clicks - Denton Record Chronicle
- Dresses Are 50% Off at Old Navy Right Now and This One Is So Chic - Us Weekly
| Mom has warning for those seeking bridal gowns online - WXYZ Detroit Posted: 12 Apr 2019 03:34 AM PDT  Spring is wedding season. And that means brides, their moms and girlfriends everywhere are looking for dresses right now. But one woman has a warning for anyone searching for discount dresses online. Kathy Sigmon doesn't know what to do. With just weeks till her son's wedding, her mother of the groom dress is wrong, all wrong. "The color I ordered was more purple, in the purple family," Sigmon said. "And the dress I received was like, a hot pink." She had found the perfect dress on a discount bridal site called Magbridal. The dark purple was a perfect complement to the bridesmaids' dresses, she explained. Surprise in the mail But instead, what arrived bunched up in a plastic bag was a sexy pink dress that she cannot wear. "It is nothing like the color swatch on the website," she said. Sigmon even checked out the company for reviews and found very little pro or con. "I even checked with the Better Business Bureau, and there was nothing posted," she said. But it turns out the company is based in China , and an agent who answered her email said, "Sorry, no refunds if you don't like the color." Sigmon insisted the issue was not that she didn't like the color she had ordered, but that the dress she received was nowhere near the color she had ordered. Another problem, as Sigmon soon learned, is that even if the site does take returns it can cost $20 or $30 in shipping fees overseas, plus at least 3 weeks to get it back to them. How to protect yourself Sandra Guile of the Better Business Bureau says the agency receives complaints every wedding season about poor quality merchandise from discount dress sites in China. In some cases, she says, the dresses are unwearable. In others, they don't show up at all. And in others, like this case, the dress received does not match what appeared online. Guile says make sure you get a refund or exchange opportunity with any dress you order. "Look on the website itself," Guile said. "Is there a phone number, is there a postal address, is there a chat box where you can talk to somebody back and forth? Ask about a refund policy or exchange policy or cancellation policy." Sigmon now has to rush to find a new dress. She says next time, she's staying local. "I took a chance and ordered this dress because I loved it. I just thought it would be so perfect." We emailed Magbridal in China as well, and an agent responded with the same information: No returns because you don't like the color, even if the hot pink color is obviously not what you ordered. As always, don't waste your money. _____________________ Don't Waste Your Money" is a registered trademark of Scripps Media, Inc. ("Scripps"). Like" John Matarese Money on Facebook Follow John on Twitter (@JohnMatarese) For more consumer news and money saving advice, go to www.dontwasteyourmoney.com  |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2019 06:00 AM PDT  Bride Bria Langer wears an example of an Amsale wedding gown that can be customized and ordered online at Amsale x You. The e-commerce site offers luxury wedding gowns for brides who want to skip a bricks-and-mortar visit and all the cultural baggage that goes with it. (Chris Sorensen/For The Washington Post)  NEW YORK — The bridal wear designer Amsale Aberra was among the first to give women a sleek, restrained alternative to a wedding dress as a sugary confection. A year ago this month, Aberra died of uterine cancer. The 64-year-old left behind her daughter Rachel, a handpicked design team, and her husband and business partner, Neil Brown, who together are aiming to carry on Aberra's creative legacy. But even more ambitiously, they are looking to upend the entire bridal wear industry, which typically measures innovation by gradations of off-white to ivory to blush. Brown wants to change the way brides purchase wedding gowns, transforming the enterprise from a "Say Yes to the Dress" field trip — in which it takes a village to choose between an Empire waist or a trumpet hem — into an luxury online experience. "I see the company transitioning from a fashion company to a fashion technology company," Brown said one afternoon last fall. Gathered around a conference table in the brand's headquarters in New York's Garment District, he and the Amsale team were explaining their next steps. One wall was covered in a hodgepodge of sticky notes, each one marked with a nugget from a brainstorming session about what brides want and when they want it. Brown, with the help of business and technology consultants, was considering how best to move forward in a time of e-commerce, customer impatience, an emphasis on personalized experiences and the ominous reality that David's Bridal — the country's largest bridal gown retailer — had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, from which it has since emerged. "So many in this industry see technology as a support function for what we do, but it's really a place of creativity that's complementary to what we do," Brown said. Several months later — after layoffs and the launch of Amsale e-commerce, which Brown said has grown rapidly — the company is launching Amsale x You. Shoppers can go online and design their own wedding dresses — within the tasteful confines of the Amsale aesthetic. "We're not just decorating a sneaker," Brown said during a recent demonstration of the site. "We're inviting the bride into our design room and sharing our intellectual property with her so she can express her own design impulses." A bride can select her dress's bodice and skirt and add a wisp of a belt. She can pick from size 0 to 24, mixing and matching different-size tops and bottoms for an optimum fit. It won't matter if a customer chooses tulle or silk faille, long sleeves or strapless — the cost is a flat fee of $5,000, which counts as a bargain in Designerville, since custom gowns ordered through Amsale's Madison Avenue salon would start at around $10,000. The dress is made-to-order and shipped out in four weeks. The site officially launched Friday, as the brand debuts its spring 2020 bridal collection on the runway here.  Amsale's website let's you design your wedding dress online. (Amsale) Sizes range from 0 to 24. (Amsale) It all sounds wildly efficient and stress free — except for that part about imagining what the dress will look like in real life, worrying that the dress won't be as flattering as you thought or coming to grips with the reality that contrary to what you have firmly believed since, well, forever — you actually hate tulle. What on earth possessed you to buy a custom tulle wedding dress that night you were sitting at home alone with a glass of wine and your wildest fantasies? What were you thinking? In other words: The proposition has a few hurdles. Eventually shoppers will be able to create a personalized avatar with their exact measurements. More bodices and skirts from the company's vast pattern archive will be added for even more dress possibilities — but really, even today, while silhouettes and beading may vary, it's still all about a traditional white dress. Brown said that about 25 percent of brides were responsible for about 75 percent of wedding spending and the Amsale customer is firmly within that category. He figures, if shoppers are willing to go to websites such as Net-a-Porter, Mytheresa and Matches and spend $4,000 and $5,000 on designer dresses, surely they will be willing to do the samefor their wedding. Perhaps. Probably. Amsale would not be the first to offer custom-made gowns online, but it would be at the top of the price range and offer a singular design point of view. At the website Anomalie, a team of designers helps shoppers through a months-long process that offers wide aesthetic latitude and a liberal return policy, and the site advertises that most dresses cost $1,000 to $1,500. Others offering such services include Bluethread and a host of Etsy entrepreneurs. But a wedding dress is not a gala gown or a cocktail frock. It's a singularly symbolic garment that speaks of girl squads and multigenerational bonding. The dress sets the tone of the wedding as much as the location and even more than the flowers, the cake, the everything else. The bride-in-the-dress serves as the day's big reveal, the moment of anticipation, the embodiment of overflowing emotion. Shopping for the dress is a social outing that includes the bride, her mother, her friends and anyone else she considers part of her inner circle — or simply in possession of good taste. The dress is not a solo event; it's a shared experience, both fraught and celebratory. It's an adventure to be documented on Instagram. Thus, Brown doesn't just want to change the way Amsale dresses are sold; he wants to change the cultural perception of the wedding dress itself, which is akin to changing the way in which brides — and women — see themselves individually and in relation to each other. That point of view has remained stubbornly static over the years: Have you picked out your dress? What are you going to wear? Let's discuss. Brides can mix and match bodices and skirts to create the dress of their choosing — within the tasteful boundaries of the Amsale aesthetic. The flat fee is $5,000. Dresses are delivered in four weeks. (Chris Sorensen/For The Washington Post) The seed for the Amsale brand was planted more than 30 years ago. Aberra, a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology, sketched her own wedding dress in 1985 as a matter of necessity. The kind of restrained, sophisticated gown she wanted didn't readily exist; wedding dresses had a fairy-tale princess complex. Aberra's dress, elegant with a chiffon bodice, was the foundation on which she and Brown built their company, and its aesthetic signified a shift in thinking: A woman did not have to redefine herself just because she was a bride. Instead, her dress could reflect the woman she had always been. Amsale gowns, at their best, exude special-occasion joyfulness but with a grown-up, refined air. They are crafted with strong lines and judicious embellishments, rather than an over-abundance of ruffles, crystals and beading. They are the equivalent of a perfectly calibrated martini rather than sweet cocktails. Amsale opened the door for brands such as Vera Wang and Monique L'Huillier. Their designers ultimately eclipsed Aberra in name recognition thanks to their ready-to-wear collections, which regularly appeared on the red carpet. [The designer who stripped the frippery and frills from wedding dresses] Can the company lead another shift? Today, brides have an endless supply of Pinterest design inspiration. Finding a dress — or a jumpsuit or a suit — that reflects their personality is not the high hurdle it once was. The challenge is doing so conveniently, at a reasonable price and in a multitude of sizes. Many millennials are planning their weddings online, and pre-gaming wedding attire before they even get engaged. And plenty of women skip the designated bridal gowns and simply buy a great party dress with the click of a button because they're more excited about their destination wedding than Swarovski crystals on silk organza. There are plans for Amsale x You to include an option for an online group shopping experience — a kind of e-commerce meets Google Docs meets FaceTime. But a virtual gaggle is not quite the same as giving a bunch of sample dresses a real-life spin in front of an audience of besties sipping champagne. For some brides, it may be a blessed relief to skip the salon and instead sit quietly alone with their thoughts and laptop to shop for a wedding dress. (Chris Sorensen/For The Washington Post) To take advantage of a full, online shopping experience means, ultimately, going it alone. That's not necessarily bad. Many brides might prefer it. They may have been dreading the tradition of dress shopping by committee. Just as it was something of a revolution when women shunned the wedding gown frippery, it may be a 21st century revolution to declare one's shopping independence. To refuse the groupthink and the solicitous sales representative. Solitary contemplation in front of a laptop may be its own special joy. Read more: Meghan Markle's Givenchy wedding gown was beautiful. But the woman wearing it was unforgettable.  |
| Dozens of wedding and prom dresses stolen from Cedar Rapids shop - Radio Iowa Posted: 12 Apr 2019 10:06 AM PDT 
Police say they broke into "Seams Easy" store and two other businesses sometime late Wednesday. The shop's owner, Loiza Edgington, told KCRG TV that the burglars threw everything about looking for things to steal. She says she first looked for the wedding dresses and found them gone and then saw that the prom dresses were also taken. It's believed they made off with at least 30 different articles of clothing, ranging from prom and wedding dresses to t-shirts. Edgington thinks the cost of the loss is about $10,000 in money in merchandise, and is a difficult situation to accept. "I just cried and cried yesterday waiting for my husband and police to come," Edgington says. Valerie Porter told KCRG TV she found out her wedding dress for a June ceremony was stolen after getting a call from her seamstress. "I thought she was calling to say, hey you have an appointment come back in and I was in the car crying," Porter says. "I really didn't know how to take it." It'll be tough to track down those responsible because there's no surveillance video or any witnesses. Edgington is hoping social media will help ID the burglars. "We're trying to check Facebook market or if somebody tries to sell them maybe that would lead us,to finding this guy," said Edgington. "Find the guy, please." Seams Easy is asking anybody who's seen any prom or wedding dresses at consignment stores, or even online, to call the store. Cedar Rapids police are also asking any information on the burglary to contact them or Crimestoppers. Meanwhile, Porter has a wedding to prepare for. She's scraped together the money for a new dress and has ordered it. Even so, she and her soon to be husband hope the original returns.  |
| Site offers customized wedding gowns in a few clicks - Denton Record Chronicle Posted: 12 Apr 2019 05:10 PM PDT NEW YORK — The bridal wear designer Amsale Aberra was among the first to give women a sleek, restrained alternative to a wedding dress as a sugary confection. A year ago this month, Aberra died of uterine cancer. The 64-year-old left behind her daughter Rachel, a handpicked design team, and her husband and business partner, Neil Brown, who together are aiming to carry on Aberra's creative legacy. But even more ambitiously, they are looking to upend the entire bridal wear industry, which typically measures innovation by gradations of off-white to ivory to blush. Brown wants to change the way brides purchase wedding gowns, transforming the enterprise from a Say Yes to the Dress field trip — in which it takes a village to choose between an Empire waist or a trumpet hem — into an luxury online experience. "I see the company transitioning from a fashion company to a fashion technology company," Brown said one afternoon last fall. Gathered around a conference table in the brand's headquarters in New York's Garment District, he and the Amsale team were explaining their next steps. One wall was covered in a hodgepodge of sticky notes, each one marked with a nugget from a brainstorming session about what brides want and when they want it. Brown, with the help of business and technology consultants, was considering how best to move forward in a time of e-commerce, customer impatience, an emphasis on personalized experiences and the ominous reality that David's Bridal — the country's largest bridal gown retailer — had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, from which it has since emerged. "So many in this industry see technology as a support function for what we do, but it's really a place of creativity that's complementary to what we do," Brown said. Several months later — after layoffs and the launch of Amsale e-commerce, which Brown said has grown rapidly — the company is launching Amsale x You. Shoppers can go online and design their own wedding dresses — within the tasteful confines of the Amsale aesthetic. "We're not just decorating a sneaker," Brown said during a recent demonstration of the site. "We're inviting the bride into our design room and sharing our intellectual property with her so she can express her own design impulses." A bride can select her dress's bodice and skirt and add a wisp of a belt. She can pick from size 0 to 24, mixing and matching different-size tops and bottoms for an optimum fit. It won't matter if a customer chooses tulle or silk faille, long sleeves or strapless — the cost is a flat fee of $5,000, which counts as a bargain in Designerville, since custom gowns ordered through Amsale's Madison Avenue salon would start at around $10,000. The dress is made-to-order and shipped out in four weeks. The site officially launched Friday, as the brand debuts its spring 2020 bridal collection on the runway. Problems and possibilitiesIt all sounds wildly efficient and stress free — except for that part about imagining what the dress will look like in real life, worrying that the dress won't be as flattering as you thought or coming to grips with the reality that contrary to what you have firmly believed since, well, forever — you actually hate tulle. What on earth possessed you to buy a custom tulle wedding dress that night you were sitting at home alone with a glass of wine and your wildest fantasies? What were you thinking? In other words: The proposition has a few hurdles. Eventually shoppers will be able to create a personalized avatar with their exact measurements. More bodices and skirts from the company's vast pattern archive will be added for even more dress possibilities — but really, even today, while silhouettes and beading may vary, it's still all about a traditional white dress. Some stats: According to the American Wedding Survey by Brides magazine, 83 percent of brides in 2018 chose a dress that was white or off-white and 76 percent wore a veil. The survey also noted that 66 percent of brides shop for their dress in specialty salons and they spend an average of $2,260. Brown said that about 25 percent of brides were responsible for about 75 percent of wedding spending and the Amsale customer is firmly within that category. He figures, if shoppers are willing to go to websites such as Net-a-Porter, Mytheresa and Matches and spend between $4,000 and $5,000 on designer dresses, surely they will be willing to do the same for their wedding. Perhaps. Probably. Amsale would not be the first to offer custom-made gowns online, but it would be at the top of the price range and offer a singular design point of view. At the website Anomalie, a team of designers helps shoppers through a monthslong process that offers wide aesthetic latitude and a liberal return policy, and the site advertises that most dresses cost $1,000 to $1,500. Others offering such services include Bluethread and a host of Etsy entrepreneurs. But a wedding dress is not a gala gown or a cocktail frock. It's a singularly symbolic garment that speaks of girl squads and multigenerational bonding. The dress sets the tone of the wedding as much as the location and even more than the flowers, the cake, the everything else. The bride-in-the-dress serves as the day's big reveal, the moment of anticipation, the embodiment of overflowing emotion. Shopping for the dress is a social outing that includes the bride, her mother, her friends and anyone else she considers part of her inner circle — or simply in possession of good taste. The dress is not a solo event; it's a shared experience, both fraught and celebratory. It's an adventure to be documented on Instagram. Thus, Brown doesn't just want to change the way Amsale dresses are sold; he wants to change the cultural perception of the wedding dress itself, which is akin to changing the way in which brides — and women — see themselves individually and in relation to each other. That point of view has remained stubbornly static over the years: Have you picked out your dress? What are you going to wear? Let's discuss. The seed for the Amsale brand was planted more than 30 years ago. Aberra, a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology, sketched her own wedding dress in 1985 as a matter of necessity. The kind of restrained, sophisticated gown she wanted didn't readily exist; wedding dresses had a fairy-tale princess complex. Aberra's dress, elegant with a chiffon bodice, was the foundation on which she and Brown built their company, and its aesthetic signified a shift in thinking: A woman did not have to redefine herself just because she was a bride. Instead, her dress could reflect the woman she had always been. Amsale gowns, at their best, exude special-occasion joyfulness but with a grown-up, refined air. They are crafted with strong lines and judicious embellishments, rather than an over-abundance of ruffles, crystals and beading. They are the equivalent of a perfectly calibrated martini rather than sweet cocktails. Amsale opened the door for brands such as Vera Wang and Monique L'Huillier. Their designers ultimately eclipsed Aberra in name recognition thanks to their ready-to-wear collections, which regularly appeared on the red carpet. Can the company lead another shift?Today, brides have an endless supply of Pinterest design inspiration. Finding a dress — or a jumpsuit or a suit — that reflects their personality is not the high hurdle it once was. The challenge is doing so conveniently, at a reasonable price and in a multitude of sizes. According to WeddingWire.com, 80 percent of wedding planning is done online and 35 percent of millennials are pre-gaming wedding attire online before they even get engaged. And plenty of women skip the designated bridal gowns and simply buy a great party dress with the click of a button because they're more excited about their destination wedding (1 in 4 count as such) than Swarovski crystals on silk organza. There are plans for Amsale x You to include an option for an online group shopping experience — a kind of e-commerce meets Google Docs meets FaceTime. But a virtual gaggle is not quite the same as giving a bunch of sample dresses a real-life spin in front of an audience of besties sipping champagne. To take advantage of a full, online shopping experience means, ultimately, going it alone. That's not necessarily bad. Many brides might prefer it. They may have been dreading the tradition of dress shopping by committee. Just as it was something of a revolution when women shunned the wedding gown frippery, it may be a 21st century revolution to declare one's shopping independence. To refuse the groupthink and the solicitous sales representative. Solitary contemplation in front of a laptop may be its own special joy.  |
| Dresses Are 50% Off at Old Navy Right Now and This One Is So Chic - Us Weekly Posted: 12 Apr 2019 12:39 PM PDT There is nothing we love more than denim. From denim cutoffs to denim jackets — and don't even get Us started on denim button-ups (a.k.a. chambray shirts!) — there is nothing we love more than all of the above. So of course, it was only natural we'd be left looking to continue on this love affair with denim. Whether we're looking to take it to the next level with denim, or just looking to turn the page, denim dresses or the next best thing. From Karlie Kloss to Reese Witherspoon and practically every A-lister, denim dresses are near-and-dear to so many hearts. Looking to follow their lead? Slip into this denim dress as it's the dreamiest option ever.  See it: Grab the Chambray Shirt Dress (originally $37) now only $19, available at Old Navy! Plus, from April 12th until April 20th, Old Navy is running their Eggstra Sale and shoppers will receive an additional 50% off all dresses, shorts and, tees. Online only, ends tomorrow April 13! Restrictions apply. This Old Navy Chambray Shirt Dress is the endlessly versatile and easy-to-wear option when looking to update our closets. It's the chic-yet-comfortable option when looking to master spring and summer dressing like a pro. The spread collar, seamed back yoke and shirred center are simply swoon-worthy. Even more swoon-worthy? The cuffed cap sleeves and nine-button placket. It gives this 100% cotton soft-washed chambray dress total knockout status. Think of this chic-yet-comfortable dress as the easy button for our closets because warm weather dressing will be as easy as pressing one simple button when wearing this dreamy dress. Across the board, shoppers seemed nothing but pleased with this denim dress. So many reviewers were left speechless over how amazing it looked on with some even saying it fit like a glove. Others went ahead and marked it as their go-to summer dress. Personally, we enjoyed that so many reviewers went ahead and actually gave styling options for this dress. How thoughtful!  See it: Grab the Chambray Shirt Dress (originally $37) now only $19, available at Old Navy! Plus, from April 12th until April 20th, Old Navy is running their Eggstra Sale and shoppers will receive an additional 50% off all dresses, shorts and, tees. Online only, ends tomorrow April 13! Restrictions apply. The reason so many gravitate towards denim pieces? They're not only highly wearable. They're endlessly styled. Just about any denim lover will attest to the magical powers that be when wearing a denim-based outfit. The same applies here with this dress. Master warm weather dressing like the pros by adding even more chicness with white sneakers, a nude tote or a wallet chain crossbody. It'll be the denim delight we are all swooning over. Easily transition this look from day-to-night by adding and subtracting a few accessories. Slip out of those all-white sneakers and into a pair of strappy sandals or super-chic-mules. Add an extra layer to this look by reaching for a jacket or coat. Why not a leather jacket? Or even a denim jacket, perhaps? Denim on denim is always a crowd pleaser! Truthfully we can go on and on about our love for this denim dress, but instead, slip into this easy-to-wear denim dress and take your denim love affair next-level. Or at least to the next chapter. See it: Grab the Chambray Shirt Dress (originally $37) now only $19, available at Old Navy! Plus, from April 12th until April 20th, Old Navy is running their Eggstra Sale and shoppers will receive an additional 50% off all dresses, shorts and, tees. Online only, ends tomorrow April 13! Restrictions apply. Check out more of our picks and deals here! This post is brought to you by Us Weekly's Shop With Us team. The Shop With Us team aims to highlight products and services our readers might find interesting and useful. Product and service selection, however, is in no way intended to constitute an endorsement by either Us Weekly or of any celebrity mentioned in the post. The Shop With Us team may receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. In addition, Us Weekly receives compensation from the manufacturer of the products we write about when you click on a link and then purchase the product featured in an article. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product or service is featured or recommended. Shop With Us operates independently from advertising sales team. We welcome your feedback at ShopWithUs@usmagazine.com. Happy shopping! Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox! Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!  |
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