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Anyone familiar with Vivienne Westwood’s runway spectacles knows that closing the show with a bridal look is a signature. “There’s always the fashion show wedding dress,” the brand’s creative director Andreas Kronthaler tells Vogue. “I’ve done wedding dresses since we started with Vivienne. 35 years—every time a wedding dress. It’s always last minute. A few days before a show: ‘Okay, what is going to be the wedding dress? Oh, we have to do a wedding dress. Do we have to do a wedding dress?’ All these questions come in. Then, of course, we always do one.” On Thursday evening, however, Kronthaler faced a new design challenge: debuting an entirely bridal-focused runway show for the brand as the centerpiece of Barcelona Bridal Fashion Week’s lineup.
Over the past few years, bridal has become a major pillar of the Vivienne Westwood brand, with a dedicated atelier, 43 exclusive retailers across the globe, and countless to-be-weds vying to wear their signature corseted styles. “It’s just a very beautiful and important part of the life of our house,” says Kronthaler. “It became bigger and bigger and bigger, so we got more organized.” Reading between the lines, it seems that creating wedding looks appeals to the designer’s inner romantic. “You know we live in a really weird age, and marriage means a lot—to be together and share life,” he says. “It’s something you can control—you can control your time together and share the good and the bad things. And then, the bad things are half as bad and the good things are double.” (Kronthaler would know: he was married to the brand’s namesake, the late Vivienne Westwood, for nearly three decades.)
While Kronthaler says he’s more of a traditionalist when it comes to wedding dresses—especially compared to the more outré pieces he’s known to create for the brand’s ready-to-wear lines—he always wants the Vivienne Westwood bride to feel truly unique. “I think what you get with us, you don’t get so easily somewhere else,” he says. “I think it can also be a bride who doesn’t necessarily wear the clothes or sometimes can’t usually afford it. But for that one occasion, they come to Vivienne. I think we are very good at making the girls look good without being too rigid.” Corsetry is a major facet of much of the brand’s bridal designs, but there’s a strong emphasis on comfort and flexibility, with details like zipper closures, swappable skirts, and removable trains. “The main thing is the top, which is always a very structured and complicated piece, but the skirt is easy to change and won’t explode your bank account. But it will change the dress completely,” says Kronthaler. “I always like a little bit of this spontaneity. The drapes aren’t nailed down—there s always a bit of movement to it.”
Deciding to headline Barcelona Bridal Fashion Week—a multi-day industry event with runway presentations and an enormous wedding trade show—felt like a major step for the bridal arm of Vivienne Westwood. “I’m enjoying every minute of being here, although it’s a challenge, because it is different,” says Kronthaler. “First, you’re always in this world of white. You have to really concentrate on how to make it unique.” Putting together the lineup for the show meant balancing more commercial designs with statement looks that add to the drama of the presentation. “Of course, it’s a fashion show. It’s a fantasy,” he adds. “But at the same time, I like some reality, too.”
Though there was plenty of classic bridal white, the pieces in the collection played with touches of blush, a rose print that has been used throughout Vivienne Westwood’s history, and even a dash of something blue. “I do think it’s beautiful to use light colors, but everybody has different skin tones and sometimes going into rose hues is nice,” says Kronthaler, who also noted that international bridal clients often look for alternative colors that fit their own country’s traditions.
The collection also presented plenty of tailoring options for the modern bride. “They are really very mannish suits—the idea is really about stealing his jacket,” the designer says, with a mischievous smile. While casting the show, they decided to use models of all genders to wear the pieces, and Kronthaler himself even closed the show wearing a white veil, floral boa, and floor-length skirt—and a The Simpsons T-shirt. (The day before the show, he hinted: “It may be great to have some boys in wedding dresses, too.”)
While the majority of designs were brand new for the show, Kronthaler also dipped into the brand’s formidable archive for inspiration. The opening gown was a recreation of a dress his former wife Vivienne Westwood made for 1995’s Vive la Cocotte collection, based on Madame de Pompadour, a Rococo painting by the artist François Boucher. “It’s something Vivienne loved, something I loved, and we loved terribly much together,” says Kronthaler of the famous artwork, which hangs in London’s The Wallace Collection, a favorite musuem of the late designer’s. "No woman has ever looked like that in a painting—it is the most beautiful dress ever made in the history of the human race.”
For the first time ever, Kronthaler created the flamboyant gown in white and asked model Simonetta Gianfelici—who walked for Vivienne Westwood in the ’80s—to wear it in the show. “I’m thinking here a lot about Vivienne in it all,” reflects Kronthaler. “She would love it. She would absolutely adore it.”
