The Philippine representative of Rosa Clara, the Barcelona-based Spanish brand, cites a number of reasons why today’s brides and even debutantes are favoring ready-to-wear over made-to-order gowns and dresses.
Text and photos by Alex Y. Vergara
In a country where weddings are a big thing, it would seem unthinkable for not a few brides to opt for off-the-rack wedding gowns to exclusively designed creations by some of the country’s most celebrated fashion designers.
But that thinking seems to be slowly changing ever since they’ve been given decent if not better options with the entry of Rosa Clara in the Philippines.
Led by its namesake creative director, Barcelona-based Rosa Clara is a global brand that specializes in ready-to-wear bridal, cocktail and debutante dresses. It opened its first store in the Philippines in 2011 at the Residences in Greenbelt. Just over a year ago, a second branch opened at Conrad Hotel’s S Maison.
Rosa Clara, the designer, recently visited the Philippines for the first time upon the invitation of Val Zayco and her family. Val is one of the people behind the company, which brought the brand to the Philippines. Rosa Clara’s visit culminated in a fashion show featuring the label’s latest collection of bridal and evening dresses at the Peninsula Manila’s Conservatory.
What accounts for Rosa Clara’s success in the Philippines? Put another way, why are a growing number of Filipino brides becoming more open to wearing ready-to-wear bridal gowns?
Val offers several reasons. But what’s most enlightening perhaps is her anecdote, which she considers the “strangest request” by far they’ve gotten from a distraught bride one hour before their Greenbelt store was due to close.
“Our Greenbelt store closes at 9 p.m., and she came in at around 8 p.m.,” Val relates. “She was in tears because her designer was unable to finish her gown on time. She had less than 12 hours to find a replacement since her wedding was at 9 a.m. the next day.”
Val and her team of female tailors wouldn’t normally cater to such an eleventh hour request, but they took pity on the bride and made an exception. After she had chosen and paid for her Rosa Clara dress, Val mobilized her tailors to work. They were up until 2 a.m. making alterations on the dress to conform to the bride’s measurements.
The funny part was, the bride could have saved herself from all the trouble because she herself told Val that she originally wanted to wear a Rosa Clara gown to her wedding. Since she thought it was expensive, she asked a designer to do something similar for her instead.
“The gown she bought from us cost her P80,000,” says Val. “And guess how much she was being charged by her designer who, in the end, was unable to deliver. P120,000!”
These days, Val adds, the more famous designers charge somewhere between P200,000 and P250,000 for a wedding gown. The younger ones have rates starting at P150,000.
“That’s why we also get a lot of brides from the provinces. Even designers based outside Metro Manila normally don’t go lower than P100,000 for a wedding gown these days,” says Val.
With the exception of a Rosa Clara store in China, Val’s two Rosa Clara stores in the country are the only ones in Southeast Asia. As a result, they’ve been getting customers from as far as Australia, Singapore and Thailand.
“For a bride in Singapore, it’s still cheaper to fly to Manila and buy a gown from Rosa Clara than buy one in Singapore,” says Val. “Besides, the quality of off-the-rack gowns available there is also not as good. With a P70,000-budget, you could already find something beautiful in our two stores.”
But price only accounts for one factor behind Rosa Clara’s success. After all, the brand also offers pricier options—up to P170,000 per gown—depending on how the bride wants to look during her special day.
It turns out, a growing number of Filipino brides these days can’t stand surprises. Superstition be dammed, they also want to see themselves in their chosen dresses and how they fit days, weeks and even months before they march down the aisles.
Val is aware of the old Filipino superstition that it’s supposedly bad luck for a bride to fit her wedding gown before the actual wedding day itself. Most Filipino brides of yore normally made do by fitting the dress’ lining.
Such a strange, unfounded belief seems consigned to the past. Of the hundreds of brides she and her team have attended to over the years, she could only count two whose mothers didn’t want their daughters to undergo initial fittings.
“We’re not about to displace anyone, least of all the country’s established designers,” says Val. “We’re here to provide brides with options. I believe one of our main come-ons is we give them peace of mind by showing them in advance how a particular dress or gown would look on them during their wedding day.
“Brides have also become more practical these days, she adds. Since they want to get their money’s worth, they want to see themselves in front of the mirror wearing gowns they’ve chosen. And, as Val found out much later, such an exercise isn’t all about just getting the right fit before or after the chosen piece is altered or delivered.
“Brides today really fit,” she says. “And 50 percent of brides who come in thinking they want to wear a certain [Rosa Clara] dress end up buying something completely different from our collection after they’ve seem themselves in it.”
Rosa Clara, the brand, normally offers clients 500 options per season. Apart from looks featured in the catalog, Val’s 130-square meter Greenbelt store, for instance, carries around 300 gowns for future brides to actually see and fit.
“Not all the gowns are on display,” she says. “Many are vacuum-sealed. We first ask the bride what particular look she wants. Once we determine that, we bring out a range of looks for her to see and try on.”
Unless they’re in a hurry like the bride Val cites at the beginning of this story, customers don’t get the actual gowns they’ve chosen and fitted. Instead, the store’s in-house tailor take their measurements based on the sample gowns they chose.
Armed with such information, Val’s team then makes the order from Spain. It takes six months for a brand new Rosa Clara gown from Barcelona to arrive in Manila.
“If they’re really in a hurry and can’t wait for six months, then they could purchase the sample gowns they like in the stores,” says Val.
Not only are most the sizes of these sample gowns “generous,” Rosa Clara’s female tailors in the Philippines, says Val, have been trained by “our Spanish principals” to do a superb altering job.
Rosa Clara is open to minor tweaks here and there to her designs such as, say, additional beadwork or a lower neckline or lower back. Val and her team, in keeping with the brand’s global practice, also provide brides who purchase their wedding gowns at Rosa Clara with free veils.
The standard veil, she says, is designed to go well with any gown. The idea is not detract or draw attention away from the gown by wearing an overly elaborate veil. But if a bride wants, say, a lace veil or additional embellishments like beadwork on a plain veil, she can try purchasing one at any of Rosa Clara’s stores.
Today’s brides are also no longer that worried that they might end up buying a ready-to-wear gown that’s similar or even the exact replica of one worn earlier by someone else. Thanks to differences in styling, says Val, no two brides would ever look exactly alike. Besides, ordering a gown from an established designer is no guarantee that a bride would end up looking different from everyone else.
Designers, especially the good ones, are dictated by an inner sense of aesthetics that becomes quite evident in their body of work. While those with limited talents and imagination tend to unconsciously channel or even copy the works of other designers. Now, that’s even worse.
“We try not to tweak a gown too much because doing so would alter the entire look and ruin the essence of the gown,” says Val. “We just tell our customers that if they want something different, they should just consider other available styles.”
With hundreds of options to choose from every season, finding the ideal wedding dress at Rosa Clara is probably the least of their problems.
