Even with the puffed sleeves, the opinions in Berlin and Mainz are very different.

It feels like more than the 600 kilometers that actually separate the two cities.

At the bridal fashion label Kaviar Gauche, the rule is: if sleeves, then expansive.

In the capital, brides can slip into mini dresses with double button closures and elbow-length puff sleeves.

Or in figure-hugging midi dresses with leg slits and sleeves that almost look like wings from the back.

There are even blazers with puff sleeves.

It took a year, says designer Johanna Kühl, "but now they work very, very well".

Striking sleeves – designers in the big cities are sure of that – are the new trend in bridal fashion.

Sarah Obertreis

Editor in the “Society & Style” department.

  • Follow I follow

Helen Bender stands in her shop just a few steps from Schillerplatz in Mainz and asks: "Who should wear those Lady Di memory sleeves?" Bender has been selling wedding dresses, one-piece suits and women's suits for more than ten years.

Not only women who marry a man come to her, but also many lesbian couples.

Bender designs the suits herself and buys the wedding dresses.

If you were looking for puff sleeves from her, you would have to search a long time.

The average customer of "La mode abyssale" - translated as Bender's shop means "limitless fashion" - wears size 44/46.

It roughly corresponds to the German standard dimensions.

Bender has often had the experience that trends are called out on the catwalks at Bridal Fashion Weeks that she cannot and does not want to sell at all - because they do not suit many body shapes or are so extravagant that most brides wear them at their own wedding would feel uncomfortable.

For example: low backs.

"These can only be worn by slim women with small breasts," says Bender.

For everyone else, it's going to be difficult just because they can't wear a bra under the dress.

In bridal fashion, trends come and go more slowly

After a long break, you can now see a lot of wedding dresses with sleeves in Mainz.

But there are no customers for more expansive shapes, says Bender.

As a designer, she has to say to herself over and over again: "Pull yourself together." Even when it comes to women's suits, brides shy away when the boldness of the cut goes beyond a frock coat.

But there is at least one point in which everyone in Berlin and Mainz agrees: Things are moving much more slowly in bridal fashion than in the rest of the industry.

It often takes several years for a trend to catch on.

In return, he stays for just as long, sometimes even decades.

That's why you won't be able to guess at Fabienne's wedding in two weeks that she wore her wedding dress two years ago: at her civil wedding, when the pandemic was still dictating life.

The shops were closed, but Fabienne wouldn't have been in the mood for classic wedding dress shopping anyway.

She ordered it from Asos, a large online retailer, for 80 euros.

That's less money than the average bride spends on her shoes.

Fabienne didn't have to save, but she wanted to.

In any case, she was never the person who imagined the perfect wedding dress even as a child.

This is her second time wearing her floor-length, lace-trimmed, one-shoulder dress with a skirt that falls straight from the waist.

It was important to her that it went well with a wreath of flowers.

The good thing about wearing it before is that she knows she's comfortable in it.

She only went to the tailor once more so that she didn't have to wear high heels at the wedding party.

Simple ballerinas are enough, thinks Fabienne.