4 Sustainable Wedding Gown Brands for Hudson Valley Brides

Local bridal designers are creating wedding-day looks that don’t sacrifice style for sustainability.

More than 5,000 bridal gowns are purchased for Lower Hudson Valley weddings each year — and that’s a conservative estimate. Often, these dresses are worn only once. With more than 100 pounds of used textiles per person in the U.S. ending up in landfills each year, according to Boston University School of Public Health, future brides are increasingly making more sustainable choices.

Eco-friendly fabrics, safe working conditions at production, and clothing waste aren’t always top of mind for a bride hunting for her dream dress. “It’s not the reason you buy a dress, but it’s a nice bonus,” says Rebecca Rampersaud, who grew up in Eastchester and created Covn, an online bridal boutique. “It’s nice peace of mind.”

Avoiding a mass-produced dress is just one Earth-friendly shopping strategy. Fabric with the “Oeke-Tex Made in Green” label guarantees it’s nontoxic and meets environmental and social requirements. Also, recycling a family member’s dress or passing along your own dress to others are eco-conscious tactics. These four bridal dress and accessory designers from Westchester and the Hudson Valley are creating designs that are both gorgeous and easy on the Earth.

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Bespokely Bridal

Ossining and NYC

Bespokely Bridal
Photo courtesy of Bespokely Bridal

“We really want to design a dress that can be used at different life Stages”

Custom-made dresses in four months, as well as custom, handmade veils, are the way owner Christine Cui operates her business. “Because our business model is made to order, we don’t have tons of dresses in inventory,” Cui says. “We generate minimum waste from design to production.”

wedding dress
Photo courtesy of Bespokely Bridal

Besides sustainable, plastic-free packaging, Bespokely provides reusable, portable dress bags. Bespokely is about creating a dress that feels like “you,” for whatever phase of life you’re in. She created an adjustable, two-piece dress for a bride who wasn’t sure whether she’d be pregnant by her wedding date. She also makes sleeves that can come off.

“We really want to design a dress that can be used at different life stages,” Cui says.

creating a wedding gown
Photo courtesy of Bespokely Bridal

To extend the life of the dress, Bespokely offers take-backs with a $100 store credit that can also be donated to the bride’s charity of choice. The take-backs will eventually be part of a rental dress program to make the dresses more financially accessible.

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Covn

Founder Rebecca Rampersaud offers custom-made, sustainable, ethical bridal and formal dresses for sizes 0 to 20. “I wanted to create something timeless, the opposite of trendy. I love the idea of passing on your dress to your daughter or granddaughter,” says the designer, who cut her teeth working in the NYC and London fashion industry. “People think of sustainable fabrics as cotton and linen, but it can be really elevated.”

Covn
Courtesy of Covn

After extensive research at the Premier Vision textile show, held in NYC and Paris, Rampersaud has landed on her favorite fabric: 97 percent cupro and 3 percent silk from a South Korean mill and ethically manufactured by a family-owned company in China certified for fair-working conditions. Cupro is created from cotton byproduct. “It was love at first touch,” she says. “It’s silky, thick, hypoallergenic, and durable,” she says.

Her boutique makes everything to order, so there’s not a bunch of wasted fabric. Each of the seven dress designs in her core collection is customizable in at least one way.

“Even the least girly girl of my friends, when she tries on one of my dresses, she twirls around,” Rampersaud adds. “I’m leaning into what makes you feel like that.”

“People think of sustainable fabrics as cotton and linen, but it can be really elevated.”

Dianne Keesee Designs

North Salem

Some women want Something completely different that’s made from a vintage family wedding dress, such as a handbag, tote bag, or keepsake pocket sewn at the dress hem.

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For more than 25 years, Dianne Keesee has been designing, creating, and altering formal and wedding dresses and veils from her northern Westchester studio. Keesee does quite a lot of repurposing. She makes junior bridesmaid, flower girl, and communion dresses from family bridal gowns. Sometimes the bride will want to wear a family member’s veil, but have it altered.

Dianne Keesee
Courtesy of Dianne Keesee

“It gives another life to the fabric and the dress,” says Keesee, who has a five-star average from 105 reviews on The Knot, winning a Best of Weddings Hall of Fame designation. Some women want something completely different that’s made from a vintage family wedding dress, such as a handbag, tote bag, or keepsake pocket sewn at the dress hem, she says. Repurposing a dress can be costly, but it’s a special option many women don’t realize exists, Keesee adds. And, she points out, it’s also a great way to satisfy that “something borrowed” and “something old” tradition.

Percacciolo Collection

Beacon

“There’s so much in landfills, and our industry definitely contributes to that, and if I can do my part to stop adding to it and try to repurpose as much as I can, I definitely will”

Nicole Percacciolo Stephen

Nicole Percacciolo Stephens creates bridal veils, garters, gloves, headbands, and robes (with an edge and even in red or lavender if desired by less traditional brides). Also, a designer of darkwear and focusing on inclusivity, Stephens started working as a pattern cutter, became a coordinator of fabric research and development, a knitwear design assistant, and finally a director of design and product development.

lace dress
Photo by CJ Moy @satchmo Court

As a custom designer, Stephens doesn’t handle a lot of stock, buying 25 to 30 yards of a vendor’s leftover lace to make three to five veils. To make a floral veil, she’ll cut out every single flower from the lace and make her own pattern and design with it so it’s one of a kind. The leftover lace can be made into headbands or gloves.

Stephens is big into repurposing. She’ll transform a mother’s beaded, poofy 1980s dress into a bridal robe for the daughter. “We have too much fast fashion nowadays, which is why I do what I do,” Stephens says. “There’s so much in landfills, and our industry definitely contributes to that, and if I can do my part to stop adding to it and try to repurpose as much as I can, I definitely will,” she says. “We can all do a little part.”

Related: These Industrial Wedding Venues in the Hudson Valley Are Breathtaking

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