Bridesmaid dresses for girls that get it

Overview

Bridesmaid dresses have a long history of being unflattering, making the bridesmaids feel uncomfortable. Why are bridal brands not keeping up with fashion trends? How can we make bridesmaids feel confident in their dress selection and give brides and bridesmaids equal control of their selection?

Project Details

The Opportunity

The intent was to create customizable dresses that give brides and bridesmaids equal control of the final dress selections. There are many customizable bridal fashion brands, but I wanted to create one for women who already know what they like. The goal is to create a brand where friends can collaborate and create brand loyalty. The breath of styles offered on the platform should be in line with the target customer’s personal design aesthetic.

Research

Reformation and Realisation Par are commerce brands for “it” girls- girls who are interested in contemporary fashion. Their successful strategy involves creating a limited number of styles that can come in a variety of prints, solids, and fabric qualities. I am taking inspiration from this concept which will minimize the production timeline and allow designers to perfect the fit and design of the limited number of silhouettes offered.

I sent out a survey to see what were the most important aspects of choosing a dress. The most important findings were that the brides usually know what they want and like to have the option of customizing silhouettes and prints.

Process

After analyzing the results from the survey and collecting notes from interviews, I was able to identify my primary archetype.

Based on the research, I started to design a system map for the user to flow through the theme selection, diversity of styles, collaboration, final approval, and checkout.

After understanding the architecture of the website based on the system, I sketched out initial wireframes.

Design Decisions

The homepage for new users would give them the initial option to decide if they were the bride or bridesmaid. As the bride, they would be directed to a short list of questions to narrow down selections for their bridesmaids. As the bridesmaid, the user would be directed to login to their friend group.

As the bride, the user is prompted to ask a few specifics so that their group can have a targeted selection of choices, based on season, theme, etc.

After the specifics have been set, the bride signs in and creates her group.

This is the collaboration page after all of the bridesmaids have been signed up. The bridesmaids are able to select their silhouette and fabric and either add their look to cart or choose from suggestions. As soon as the dress is added to cart, the bride would be prompted to approve the selections.

Reflection

In my next steps, I will wireframe the exploration page based on the users’ preferences and also integrate Pinterest to generate themes for the bride. I enjoyed working on this project because I learned that many women don’t need help in the design selection and creating a website specifically for them gives them trust in the brand. I designed the website specifically for these users. My usability testing concluded that women love to customize their selections with different prints and giving these women control to their dress selection gives them confidence.