Si­mone Sant-Ghu­ran

We've all heard past hor­ror sto­ries of brides­maid dress­es–un­sight­ly con­fec­tions, over­flow­ing with lace, puffs and can-can that no one would ever dream of wear­ing again. Luck­i­ly, the mod­ern trend is to have more ver­sa­tile dress­es or even so­phis­ti­cat­ed sep­a­rates (skirt & bodice) that may have a bet­ter chance of see­ing the light of day again! Ac­tu­al­ly, a bride's first task in choos­ing brides­maid at­tire is to choose her bridal gown. The rea­son for this is that the bridal gown sets the tone. It can be used to de­ter­mine the for­mal­i­ty of the wed­ding–for ex­am­ple, a ball gown-styled dress con­notes more of a for­mal af­fair, while a white slip dress would be more ap­pro­pri­ate for a beach wed­ding.

Brides should de­cide on a flat­ter­ing colour or colour scheme. This may match or be com­ple­men­tary to the cho­sen wed­ding d�cor colours. Ide­al­ly, brides should al­so choose dress styles to suit each brides­maid's body type. It is per­fect­ly ac­cept­able to have more than one dress type in the bridal par­ty. The A-line dress style usu­al­ly looks good on most women.

Here's a re­view of what some of the for­eign de­sign­ers launched at their Spring 2010 col­lec­tions:

Al­fred An­ge­lo–These dress­es were a mix of knee-length and floor-length. They var­ied from print­ed, silk dress­es with pin tuck­ing, to two-toned dress­es (eg black and white or mocha and lime green) with sash­es and em­pire waists. Colours: cran­ber­ry, black, dusty plum, moss green, red, cobalt blue and?pur­ple.

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Bill Lev­koff–A ma­jor­i­ty of strap­less dress­es, ruched sweet­heart bodices and back de­tail­ing such as lace-ups.

Colours: cham­pagne, black, in­di­go, pur­ple and cobalt.

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Bari Jay–This col­lec­tion fea­tured most­ly strap­less dress­es and cold shoul­der dress­es fea­tur­ing flo­ral fab­ric rose de­tail­ing. The strap­less, floor-length dress­es came with jew­elled belts and/or ruf­fles. Colours: dusty blue, ivory, cobalt, pale yel­low and rose-pink.

Cyn­thia Row­ley Brides­maids–This is the de­sign­er's first brides­maid col­lec­tion and it was launched in June of this year. It fea­tures mod­ern V-neck cock­tail dress­es with bow de­tail­ing at the shoul­ders, cold-shoul­der cock­tail dress­es and floor-length strap­less dress­es. The tops of the dress­es sport pleat­ing, blousons, ruf­fles and flower de­tails. Cobalt blues, laven­ders, navy blues, pur­ples, bright pinks, ivory and ap­ple greens were used for the fab­ric colours.

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Monique L'huil­li­er Brides­maids–This de­sign­er chose V-necks, cold shoul­ders and strap­less dress­es with bow de­tail­ing at the waist.