Bridal With Heart
“Changing the World, One Wedding Dress At A Time…”
Feel good about your custom wedding dress purchase by knowing it will support training, legacy building and strides to a more sustainable fashion world.
The idea of training BIPOC and members of the historically disinvested community in Hartford, CT came from our designer's days working in the LA and NY garment districts. That time in her life was absolutely amazing, but there were many issues she noticed in the design industry and over the years, she has worked to figure out ideas to combat the systemic problems that characterize the industry including:
Fashion Waste
From overproduction starting in the sampling stage and continuing to the fast fashion that inevitably ends up clogging our landfills, fashion waste is a global problem. Many of the washes and processes used in the creation of the washes of your favorite jeans are leaving a lasting environmental impact. And if that’s not enough, some well known companies have even been exposed for destroying clothing so that it becomes unusable to people who are experiencing homelessness who depend on finding discarded clothing in dumpsters and refuse.
Complexity and Scale
Huge and complex supply chains make it difficult to operate once one cog in the wheel isn’t turning. We are still feeling the rippling effects in our supply chain even post lockdown, proving that the current way of doing things and reliance on multiple countries to turn raw goods and components into final products isn't sustainable. One snag in this system, say a missed deadline, worker strike, etc and it all comes tumbling down.
Inequality In Pay and Discriminatory Hiring Practices
From a lack of leadership accountability, to upholding wage inequality to limiting access to roles of authority and the pay that is warranted for these roles as evidenced in the aftermath of the death of Andre Leon Talley. To the well publicized worker exploitation which sees the people at the top who do the least amount of work profiting off the backs of those at the bottom.
Separate and unequal
In academic circles, one of the biggest issues is that colleges and universities create completely separate worlds from the communities they are built in. Fashion businesses are no different. Many businesses have no connection to the places they are located in, do not hire from within the community and are even able to receive government subsidies and tax breaks which do not support the local economy.
And these are just some of the problems that plague the fashion industry.
But it’s not all doom and gloom folks. There are people out there who want to be a part of the solution and are working to do whatever they can.
Our solution?
Bridal with heart.
This is where your love story comes in. Custom wedding dresses are unique garment which do not require hundreds of thousands of yards of fabrics, are not mass produced and are handmade. By training people to do this important work, you help bring the dreams of others to reality. When you purchase your dream wedding dress from our studio, you can feel good knowing you are doing your part to help change the world for good.
Dani's focus has always been on one wedding dress at a time, one bride at a time and even though she has recently been exploring selling her gowns in bridal shops around the US, our goal is to support small batch manufacturing through co-op and employee ownership, release limited runs and produce limited amounts of gowns at one time.
Custom wedding gowns are slow fashion and slow fashion is good for the earth.
Andddd, let’s be honest, if you’re going to spend the $$$$ let it do some good and leave the earth in a better place.
So what are you waiting for? Let's get this ethical wedding dress party started! Click the button to purchase your custom sketch:
