There's one very good reason why wedding dresses are so expensive, and it's the same reason that they're also so jaw-droppingly beautiful: They're made of expensive and intricate materials that are pricy for designers and bridal salons to purchase, too.
In fact, many designers refuse to use more affordable materials, like tulle and lower-cost laces, over the top-shelf fabrics that drape beautifully and feel luxurious to the touch. The process of creating a wedding dress, especially one with embroidery and beading , is not only artistic and creative, but also mathematical and requires great dexterity. After the designer creates the sample, they then have to recreate the sample to work for every size they offer, adjusting detailing as necessary.
That's why you'll often find that wedding dresses with extreme detailing cost more than those with little-to-no embellishments. Additionally, if these embellishments are hand-stitched or crafted with handmade lace, the price will be higher than that of a dress made entirely by machine. Much like the clothing and accessories you purchase for wear on a daily basis, wedding dresses with designer labels are more costly.
Whether you purchase your wedding dress off-the-rack or order one from a designer, it's highly unlike that it will fit you perfectly without any alterations. To ensure you don't have sticker shock when it comes time to pay for your gown, factor alteration costs into your dress budget.
What's with the high price tag here? These alterations require several hours, if not days, of hand-sewn work. The labor costs alone have to be above minimum wage at least. When you do the math, it all makes sense. And you want to weep. How to reconcile sustainable fashion with the its higher price tag is probably the most complex question I face, as someone who spends a lot of time trying to persuade people to kick their fast fashion habit. But they need to be. Less than 2 per cent of garment workers globally earn a living wage.
Plain old capitalism, dressed up in organic cotton. How much should our clothes cost, really? Every time I spy a certain much-hyped, prairie-tastic sustainable brand on my Instagram feed, I can almost feel my overdraft wincing. So how do we find our fiscal comfort zone? The answer was up-front honesty. Why does it need to be a secret? The lowest price covers its cost, the second covers the cost plus marketing, and the highest price includes an amount for business development.
Which shoppers pay is entirely up to them. In fact, despite statistics that suggest millennial and Gen Z shoppers care deeply about sustainability, the fast fashion market is actually growing—and the clothes are getting cheaper.
Understanding where the number on a price tag comes from requires tallying every step of production—fabric, labor, shipping, packaging—and adding a profit margin. The industry standard for a profit margin is between a 2. That retailer has to mark it up by 2.
And why would she know? Fashion has not been transparent historically, particularly when it comes to money and profits. Forget trying to create ethical, sustainable clothes; how do you convince people to pay more for them? The only way she could lower her prices would be to take less profit or transition her business to a direct-to-consumer model, eliminating the retail markup.
Given the state of department stores, many of her peers are likely thinking the same thing.
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