Upcycle your wedding dress
As Carrie Bradshaw did, many brides are looking to repurpose their gowns
Weddings may be a once-in-a-lifetime occasion for most people, but that doesn’t mean their wedding attire has to be stored away, never to be seen again, afterward. Many brides are finding new ways to repurpose their dresses.
Sarah Jessica Parker’s “Sex and The City” character, Carrie Bradshaw, is just one of the former brides restyling their wedding dresses to wear again. The actor has been photographed filming the next season of the sequel series “And Just Like That,” wearing her Vivienne Westwood gown from the 2008 “Sex and the City” movie, paired with matching teal cape, gloves, shoes and a feathered headpiece.
The show’s costume designer, Molly Rogers, says brides “want to reexperience a flood of happy memories on a day they were truly the queen.”
But why would Parker’s character want to wear the dress she was famously jilted in? And where is she going?
“It’s impossible to answer,” said Rogers, who is based in New York and Miami. “Maybe we can chat when all is revealed.”
Rogers is keeping mum. But one bride who can answer questions about future wedding dress uses, Rachel Crook of London, says she knew from the start that she would wear her wedding dress again.
“If you have lovely things, you should use them,” she said. “I don’t see why you would keep something so beautiful in a box. What’s the point in having it if you’re not going to use it?”
Crook, 41, the director of retail at Gatwick Airport, married in London in June 2021. She went to Andrea Hawkes, who owns a bridal shop in London, to have her wedding dress designed
— a simple, off-white silk dress, with a calf-length skirt, three-quarter-length sleeves and button detailing on the back.
“I wanted something sophisticated, as an older bride,” she said. “And right from the beginning, even before the wedding I was thinking, ‘How can I wear this again?’ ”
Regearing the dress is something many brides are now considering even before their nuptials, Hawkes said. “In my studio, brides are more often saying ‘I could wear this again’ when trying their dresses on for the first time,” she said. “They already have that in mind before buying. They won’t compromise on what they want, though.”
Hawkes started her business in 2013. Her shop has offered a “post wedding alteration service” since 2020, where dresses are restyled so that they can be worn again.
The alteration service begins with a “restyle consultation,” which costs around $30. During the consultation, brides will bring in their dresses and discuss what is possible, and what has already been done to the dress. At that time, they are also asked to bring in any accessories they plan on wearing with their restyled dress.
“The most common thing we do is shorten the hem,” Hawkes said. “That’s probably the easiest way to alter a wedding dress. Splitting
it in half, if the dress has a waist seam, is another option and it can be worn again as separates.”
Alteration costs vary, but Hawkes says that the cost, on average, is between about $220 and $550.
Crook returned to the same shop with her dress, and had a navy lace overlay added to her off-white gown, which cost about
$730.
It was a safer way of changing the color of the dress, Hawkes said. “Dyeing a dress isn’t the best option,” she added.
“It can be unpredictable, and patchy. It’s impossible to say what a dress has already had done to it at the factory. You should do a test patch even if you’re just dry cleaning the dress to wear
again.”
Crook has a few events in mind for which she plans to wear her restyled dress. “I’m going to wear it to a wedding, because it doesn’t look anything like a wedding dress anymore,” she said. “I also want to hold an event in the next 12 months to celebrate all the milestones we missed in lockdown, like turning 40, and having a baby, so I’m going to wear it for that.”
Danielle Copperman,
29, who owns a company that makes granola quinoa breakfast products, had her wedding looks designed with the intention to be reworn.
Copperman married in Lyon, France, where she lives, this past September. She captions a photo of her wedding gown, on Instagram, “Desperately seeking an opportunity to wear it again.”
Copperman had two gowns created for her wedding, which included a town hall ceremony before a reception at the groom’s rustic family home in the French countryside. They were made sustainably, with vintage fabrics.
“I avoid using anything once in my daily life, and my wedding wasn’t an exception,” she said. “I had them designed with wearing them again in mind, so we avoided lace or embellishment, anything super bridal.”
There are elements of her bridal look that she has already reworn, such as her Jimmy Choo wedding shoes, a pair of white leather chunky mules, and her bridal jewelry.
Copperman says she also plans to wear the white, halter-neck gown again.
“It will work for red carpet events, and any Christmas and New Year’s parties I go to this year in Paris or London,” she said. “I’ll pair it with a fur collar and may add a gold retro belt to make it more fun.”
The dress was created using dead-stock, or surplus, fabric, and a secondhand dress that the bride bought from eBay. The look was created and styled by her friend, Zoe Jervoise, who is a founder of P.S. Bridal, a bridal company based in Windsor, England.
“A wedding is one of the most un-eco-friendly events we’ll have in our life,” Jervoise said, “and 90% of the emissions from the dress happen in manufacturing. So I think it’s important we normalize wearing it more than once.”