Karen Walker Is Launching a Line of Wedding Dresses for the “Cool, Nonchalant, and Real” Bride – Vogue

Photo: Courtesy of Karen Walker

Imagine a world where your favorite designer—the one whose clothes you reach for every day, whose dresses and pants always magically fit, who never lets you down!—could also design your wedding dress. Wouldn’t that make everything so much easier? Instead, brides have to navigate a bewildering landscape of unrecognizable names, unfamiliar sizes, and inconceivable silhouettes. It’s uncharted territory, and even the most obsessive fashion fan is bound to get lost.

For Karen Walker shoppers, that’s no longer the case: Today, the New Zealand–based designer is expanding her business to include Karen Walker Atelier, a fully-fledged bridal line. To anyone who knows Walker’s kaleidoscopic prints, funky sunglasses, and approachable price point, it will register as a surprise: Why would she want to make fussy wedding dresses? That’s entirely the point: She isn’t. For years, Walker’s customers have asked her to make party clothes and wedding dresses in the same spirit as her main line—i.e., fun, feminine, and not too sweet—because that’s how they wanted to feel on their big day. They didn’t want the princess pouf; they wanted to feel like themselves. “The funny thing about bridal is that it sits so far outside of ‘normal life,’ and so outside of how a lot of people think about fashion and clothes and their values,” Walker said on a WhatsApp call from Auckland. “It’s odd when you think about it in the larger context. So we wanted our pieces to just be more real, I think. We’re still celebrating the ritual and acknowledging that and holding it up—but just doing it in a way that feels real.”

That comes through in pretty, but not overly “fancy” dresses with signature Walker touches like ruffles, sculptural bows, and high necklines. For her superfans, she reinterpreted a few of her best-selling silhouettes in ivory taffeta, lace, beaded tulle, and silk, and unlike most bridal collections, only two of her designs are bona fide “gowns.” They’re outnumbered by minis, ankle-length dresses, and two ivory suits (styled with sneakers, naturally). “Our bride isn’t the ‘meringue bride,’ ” Walker says. “She isn’t trapped at the table behind the cake—she wants to get out there and enjoy her day, and have a realness about her.”

It feels worlds away from the typical “wedding planning experience”—overwhelming! stressful! endless!—and mirrors the general shift toward more personal, understated weddings in America. That’s hardly news to Walker, though. “I haven’t been to an American wedding, but in New Zealand, they’re a bit more low-key and casual,” she explains. “They’re less traditional here. It’s one day—it’s not that huge, five-day event you see in other places [and online].”

One trend that’s spacing the globe, whether in Auckland or Amagansett, is that brides are shopping for more than one dress. At Walker’s price point—starting at just $950—you could easily rationalize doing the same: Maybe you’ll wear the sheer tulle gown for the ceremony, then change into the crushed-satin tux for a night of dancing. Or take a tip from Walker and do the reverse: “I wasn’t ever going to be the bride who was ‘revealed’ as I was walking down the aisle,” she says. “I was out there in a little skirt suit welcoming my guests as they arrived—then I changed into my dress.” That might be the most radical—and sensible!—idea we’ve heard in a while.