Health
Ozempic-Fueled Slimming Is Blowing Up The Wedding Dress Industry
Price discrepancies and dysfunction are not new in the $73 billion wedding business. However, the rise of weight-loss medicines in the 2020s has created an additional challenge for the seamstresses and designers in charge of the Big Day’s centerpiece garment: the bridal gown.
The Hollywood weight-loss secret has been revealed, and it’s more accessible than ever. GLP-1 medicines, known by the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy, have become widely available, thanks in part to compounding pharmacies that sell cheaper, non-FDA-approved versions. (The Food and Drug Administration has warned customers about the risks of unlicensed GLP-1 medications, and a recent JAMA Network article discovered that high demand has resulted in a proliferation of illegal internet pharmacies selling the drugs without prescriptions.)
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Ozempic-Fueled Slimming Is Blowing Up The Wedding Dress Industry
And, as my colleague Tami Luhby wrote this week, demand for these treatments is expected to rise even further as employers increasingly explore covering them for weight loss rather than just diabetes.
For better or worse, many brides are taking the medicines ahead of their wedding, drawn in by the promise of quick weight loss. That complicates the already difficult task of purchasing and changing their gowns.
“The first issue is the bridal industry’s dysfunction right now, where it takes five to nine months to order a dress,” Susan Ruddie Spring, a designer and proprietor of bridal styling business The Wedding Dresser, told me recently.
Dress orders that used to take three months are now taking much longer, Spring explained, in part because supplies from China are being redirected away from disturbances along the Suez Canal, a critical highway that contributes for up to 15% of global trade.
That’s only one aspect of the time issue.
The right match.
According to the wedding planning website The Knot, the best time to buy a wedding dress is eight to ten months before the event, while other planners prefer buying a full year ahead of time to account for shipping delays.
One study discovered that patients who are obese or overweight lost up to 15% of their body weight while using tripeptide, commonly known as Mounjaro, over the course of a year. Those using semaglutide lost approximately 8%.
“I have recently had a couple of brides who lost about 50 pounds with Ozempic,” Springs told me. “Usually, the dress was ordered somewhere in the middle of those 50 pounds.”
It’s difficult to overestimate how much a substantial weight loss can affect the fit of a wedding dress. The clothes are frequently structurally elaborate, adorned with layers of pricey beading, tulle, and lace, and, of course, burdened with unfathomable amounts of emotion and societal expectations.
That worry is obvious on numerous Reddit wedding and weight loss threads, where brides seek advice on how to buy a dress — possibly the most costly item they’ll ever buy — while they have no idea what their bodies will look like a few months later.
The financial risk is real. While most gowns may be taken in several inches, there are limitations, and brides who lose a significant amount of weight may need to purchase a totally new dress. The typical bridal gown cost $2,000 in 2023, according to the Knot. That’s before modifications, which might add hundreds or even thousands to the cost. (Dress and all, the Knot discovered that the typical American wedding costs $35,000.)
The biggest loser.
The Ozempic effect is also causing stress for seamstresses.
Each buyer and dress is unique, but Spring estimates that a typical gown requires 20-40 hours of labor. That’s three one-hour fits with the customer, plus anywhere from six to twelve hours of work in the interim.
However, fast shrinking brides generate more work, which does not always result in more money. Most tailoring companies charge brides a flat rate for a specified number of fittings and adjustments at the beginning of the process, and seamstresses insist they will not penalize brides who lose weight.
Ozempic-Fueled Slimming Is Blowing Up The Wedding Dress Industry
“Brides will always lose weight because of the stress of preparing for the wedding,” said Myrna Lundberg, senior tailor shop manager at Alterations Specialists in New York. However, with her 40 years of expertise in the market, she claims that the projected 5-to-10-pound reduction for most brides has increased with the development of Ozempic.
“It’s really affecting our business, because, it’s more fittings, more time, more work — we lose money,” she told me.
Say yes to stress.
The continual supply of brides in need of significant changes is just one of the unforeseen consequences of the Ozempic Era. But it’s one that’s disproportionately harsh on women, both for the bride dealing with decades of disordered weight standards and for those who work to make conventional wedding dress aspirations a reality.
Spring informs me that tension travels in both directions.
“It’s unrealistic for brides to expect to look like models when walking down the aisle. “And we do more work for the same money.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the majority of seamstresses in the United States are women, with a median pay of $37,000. They are also disproportionately immigrant women, who are frequently underpaid. According to fashion insiders who spoke with CNN the Knot, many undocumented women get below-average salaries under the table.
Lundberg argues that, in addition to the physical strain of modifying the gown, there is also emotional labor involved.
“Weight loss has always been a primary priority. So we just have to be extremely careful how we deal with them,” Lundberg explained. “It’s not like you are their seamstress — it’s like you’re also their psychologist.”
SOURCE | CNN
