“It was not just about the idea of wedding dresses or marriage,” says WED Studio creative director Evan Phillips. “It’s like a marriage of ideas that comes from two different people,” he explains. “Visually we wanted something very different from what was already out there, which was very romantic. We wanted something that was more modern, and we ended up with WED.”
Phillips first came together with his WED Studio design other half, Amy Trinh, as a student at Central Saint Martins. “Our work was very different, but we shared a table and became friends,” says Phillips. “When we left school, we both went on to have our own endeavours, but stayed friends.” For his part, Phillips honed his craft at Richard Quinn and Simone Rocha, while Trinh worked her way up at Stella McCartney and COS.
Then in 2018, fate brought them back together when Trinh got engaged. “I think it was just as a fun thing, but I also couldn’t find anything that just felt like me,” says Trinh of her elusive dress search. “I was like ‘Well why don’t we just do something together? We’re designers!’ ” she exclaims. And so, they got to work. “It grew from there,” she continues. “We took the market a little more seriously and saw it as an opportunity because there was nothing like [what] we were discussing currently.”
“What we did in the beginning was bridal with a ready-to-wear perspective,” says Phillips. “It was softer, more separates,” he adds. “I think for us the vision was always a little bit anti and a bit naughty in a way because we weren’t doing something that people had seen before in bridalwear,” says Trinh. “It felt like we were deconstructing it a little bit. The vision came from the idea of kind of being like a disrupter to the industry,” she says. “I think that comes across a lot in the brides we work with. They’re very much people that haven’t ever thought about wearing a wedding dress before,” says Phillips.
For their latest collection, the duo went back to their roots. “It was this moment where we dug into our archives, and it’s some things that people have never seen,” says Trinh. “There were all of these things we developed and were so excited about at some point, and they just never got anywhere,” she says of the collection, which includes sheer fabrics, structured cuts and contrasting black embellishments. “I think through that connection was an amalgamation of all these ideas we created over the past four or five years, and it is this collection. Aesthetically, it felt very strong for the brand.”
They also paid equal attention to their accompanying accessories, including veils. “It’s one of those things that’s so rooted in tradition,” says Phillips. “For us, it was about flipping that whole idea,” he says. “You don’t wear a veil any other time but your wedding day, and we wanted to do it in our way,” says Trinh. “It was kind of an introduction to what we’re going to do going forward, and how we’re subverting these traditional ideas.”
As the brand has grown, the idea for the WED bride has never wavered. “It’s someone who is confident in their own sense of self. They have a strong idea of what they like and what they don’t like,” says Phillips. “I think that’s why certain clientele gravitate towards us. It’s like people who are quite open-minded and want to experiment. They want something not everyone has seen on Instagram,” he says.
“I think that’s the key actually,” adds Trinh. “They don’t want to look like anybody else. We are kind of that brand that doesn’t want to fit into those typical boxes,” she says. “I think customers and clients are starting to think more about what it is that they want,” says Trinh. “And we keep pushing what it is to be a bridal brand.”
