Finding The One has oft-times been chalked down to fate, something that will happen when it’s meant to. But when The One requires months, even years, of searching, fittings and deliberating, it’s redundant to leave it to chance.

Obviously, The One here is referring to the sartorial sort, the wedding outfit that will transcend generations of your family. The ensemble in which you will start the next chapter of your life. Needless to say, it’s important that it’s right.

Following the government’s omni-dithering during stop-and-start lockdowns however, tying the knot and saying “I do” has never felt so difficult, scaled-back and convoluted. Bridal gatherings were stripped back, wedding ceremonies were thin on the ground and the result it had on the bride’s consequent fashion choices ran parallel to these realities.  

This is something that Rixo founders Henrietta Rix and Orlagh McCloskey have found. “The pandemic has changed the type of weddings people are having,” McCloskey tells Stylist. “Which has meant that women want to be more comfortable and are moving away from wearing gowns in favour of more low-key looks.”

The London label, beloved for its devotion to fluid silhouettes and retro prints, which McCloskey designs by hand, debuted its first dedicated bridal offering in February 2021. The collection came as the answer to its customer’s queries. “Bridal had been in the pipeline for a while,” Rix says. “But we wanted to do it right. We talk to our customers constantly on Instagram, and we took a lot of feedback from them both virtually and in-store.” 

One year on from its debut, the sophomoric Rixo bridal collection, which launched earlier this year, is as slip dress and tailoring-filled as any low-key bride could hope for. There are sequins and feathers “for the bride’s evening occasion” and simple but elevated skirt suits for even the most simple of ceremonies.

The Own Studio, which launched three years ago, has similarly asserted itself as a purveyor of pared-back bridal looks. “We’ve had increased demand for women that are looking for a pared-back look across different necklines and shapes, from dresses and separates through to more tailored looks such as suits and jumpsuits,” the brand’s co-founder Jess Kaye says.  

Despite Google having noted a 100% uptick in searches for “casual wedding dresses” over the past month alone, it would appear that brides were reconsidering their wedding day wares long before our lives, and indeed big days, were upended by the pandemic. Matches Fashion debuted its bridal section, which includes designs from Christopher Kane and Molly Goddard, in 2020, following hot on the heels of Browns Fashion, whose bridal offering was revealed in 2019.

According to Lyst’s bridal report in 2020, searches for pre-owned, vintage and secondhand wedding dresses were all beginning to spike, with kooky designs by Molly Goddard and Copenhagen stalwart Cecilie Bahnsen following a similar trajectory. 

Renowned sleepwear-to-daywear Ukrainian label Sleeper dipped its toe into the bridal pond earlier this year with a size-inclusive slip and feather-filled bridal offering, with the brand’s co-founder Asya Varetsa clear on ensuring that its wedding wares could be incorporated seamlessly into a wardrobe after the big day.

Kaye is clear: “The popularity of the low key bridal look is a lot to do with the fact that women want to be able to wear their wedding look again after the wedding day. The pared-back look is much more individual because you can really style it in so many different ways and make it really your own.”

Brides-to-be can take their cues from a clutch of notable figures in the public eye, who have similarly favoured pared-back bridal ensembles. Lily Allen sported a 50s-inspired Dior mini dress for her Las Vegas wedding to David Harbour, while Sophie Turner opted for a silky jumpsuit for her initial Vegas nuptials.

Wedding jumpsuits, two-piece suits and skirt suits are also more popular than ever, with Rixo noting that the tailoring duo was so popular in their initial bridal collection that its founders have reimagined it in the form of a trouser suit in its second collection.

In short, bridal brigades are more scaled-back than ever before, and so too are the clothes to match. The One has never been so easy to find. The Own Studio’s co-founder Rosie Williams concedes, “There is something so beautiful in simplicity.”  

Images: courtesy of brands.