How Danielle Frankel Hirsch Became the Wedding Dress Go-to for Zo? Kravitz, Julia Garner and More
Danielle Frankel Hirsch is on track to being the next great American bridal designer.
She’s brought a fashion directional point of view to the world of same-same white dresses, becoming a go-to for style insiders and celebrities alike, including Naomi Biden, Zo? Kravitz and Julia Garner. She’s garnered accolades from the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the first bridal designer to do so, and become enough of a draw that she can show off-calendar, separate from New York Bridal Fashion Week.
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It’s “uniqueness that sets her apart,” said actress AnnaSophia Robb, who wed entertainment lawyer Trevor Paul in 2022 in Danielle Frankel’s tulle and twill corseted strapless Anika gown.
“I was creating a space for myself and now we’re creating a house,” Frankel Hirsch told WWD of how her eight-year-old, New York-based bridal business is evolving, including launching her first new category on Wednesday: footwear.
Frankel Hirsch has built her brand around modern and avant-garde wedding designs with unexpected details and intriguing fabric innovation, which evoke the high fashion sensibility of runway collections.
For example, her latest collection included luxe gowns crafted in humble jersey; the Quincy dress with fringes made of ombre silk organza tubular strands and handcrafted 3D floral decorations, including some cast in metal. The collection continued to push Frankel Hirsch’s melding of traditional bridal elements with unexpected glamour, spanning from an elegant silk wool draped strapless Bex ballgown with a voluminous bubble hem skirt and a stellar tailored, nipped-waist coat with hand-cut and -frayed bias silk wool embroidery — perfect for a courthouse ceremony — to alluring separates that combined modern sport with romance and sophistication (a la the silk organza Marcel bomber jacket adorned with Lyon lace appliqués with Laila Lyon lace pencil skirt with asymmetric flanges, hand-painted florals and silk honeycomb netting).
Prior to launching her label, Frankel Hirsch trained under Vera Wang and Marchesa before designing custom looks for her friends and her own wedding.
“In the first few years it was just about, ‘I’m shaking it up. I’m going to try new things, experiment and see what works.’ I wanted to create a fresh point of view,” Frankel Hirsch said. “I think if you look at those very early collections, they feel like they’re done by a young designer who is a little bit more free. I don’t want to say experimental, but rather entering into a space that was sort of the unknown, because there really were no other young bridal designers at the time.”
The label now has 33 retail partners, including Net-a-porter, Saks Fifth Avenue and myriad global bridal boutiques, and is projecting sales increases for 2024 to “double the business again,” Frankel Hirsch said.
“When a bride is interested in unique details or interesting details, that’s what makes me think of Danielle Frankel. I also think of the designs as whimsical or distressed — in a good way, as in thoughtfully imperfect, which is beautiful about her creations, such as asymmetrical or playful details,” said Kate Loscalzo, founder and bridal stylist of Chicago-based Something White Styling, which launched in 2019 to service Midwest brides and beyond.
Telsha Anderson-Boone, owner and buyer of T.A. Boutique and former Danielle Frankel bride, told WWD, “there are a lot of beautiful brands within the bridal market but DF speaks a bridal language that combines the art and tradition of marriage.”
For Frankel Hirsch, an inflection point for the business came last year when her husband, Joshua Hirsch, joined the label as chief executive officer.
“When he took over the business, our overall company margins shot up. He was able to dive in and fully develop the business into what it has become,” she said, adding that since she’s been able to turn her attention full time to design.
Speaking to the outlook of growth in business during luxury’s currently tricky climate, Hirsch told WWD, “It certainly is an interesting time for the luxury market given how well-informed and opinionated the modern consumer is. Few luxury brands can depend solely on a legacy name to maintain relevance and growth. People want to feel like they are part of something special, and that they are truly expressing themselves when they make a purchase at this level.”
“For us, it’s about constantly innovating and learning from our consumers, both from a design and experience perspective. It’s part of what makes Danielle so smart: the ability to build on that feedback without compromising her vision. It’s why the company has grown each year [85 percent in 2023], and it’s why we are confident that the growth rate will actually accelerate through 2025 and beyond, along with footprint expansion and other exciting things in the works,” the CEO added.
The company now has about 30 employees at its Garment District atelier, which has grown in size from a quarter of a floor to one and a half floors — complete with a highly organized backend production and stockroom; large atelier, and beautifully decorated client fitting, alteration and waiting rooms. Clients are coming from as far away as Australia, Singapore and China, and the brand can accommodate 14 brides each day for consultations, and six for alterations.
While a handful of younger bridal brands have emerged over the years, one aspect that sets Danielle Frankel apart is seasonal innovation.
“We don’t just stick with what’s working for our bride and make iterations of it. Every season, we are really hard on ourselves,” Frankel Hirsch said.
She debuts two seasonal collections a year, as well as additional capsules that launch on the brand’s e-commerce alongside core styles — noted to be frequently worn gowns that remain within the showroom and site until “we feel it’s time to move on,” Frankel Hirsch said.
Custom work — both customization services and custom from scratch with made to measure — are also a sizable part of the business. For instance, Alex Cooper’s custom Nina silk wool gown with exaggerated basque waist and clean structural bustier; Alexandra Daddario’s custom romantic pleated silk wool gown with hand appliqué Chantilly and corded lace for her New Orleans-set wedding; Julia Garner’s custom pleated dress and pant set for her December 2019 City Hall ceremony, and more.
“Her pieces are luminous. When you see one of her designs, you know it’s from her imagination,” Robb said.
Her collections start at $3,490 for non-custom, classic styles and range upward of $24,900 for more intricate gowns featuring hand-crafted details. Separates range between $990 to upward of $6,990, and seasonal handcrafted jewelry, veils and accessories sit between $1,000 and $2,500 (with specialty veils and headpieces going up to $6,000).
Danielle Frankel brides also appreciate the experience at her atelier, which features soft green lime-washed walls, an eclectic curation of vintage furnishings and a selection of personal memorabilia (including tchotchkes from Frankel Hirsch’s grandparents) alongside large custom garment racks filled with lots of gowns and veils for brides to play with.
When Jenny Olson, a Danielle Frankel bride and head of community at L.A. fashion label D?en, walked into the space for her first consultation, “I instantly felt comfortable,” she said.
“I went in and felt it was a jewel box, or in someone’s beautiful dressing room at home. It didn’t feel unapproachable to me, which I felt was really important, because I love fashion, but I also feel like sometimes it can be a little scary. Especially like trying to pick out a bridal outfit, I felt that going into this experience I wanted to be comfortable, and I did,” Olson said of choosing the buy now draped Hazel dress and Winnie top and Theo skirt for her smaller destination wedding and larger hometown one. “It felt like I was trying on clothes with friends.”
Photographer Naima Green echoed this sentiment through her own experience as a Danielle Frankel bride.
“It’s the experience of not only seeing Danielle’s designs online [the photography is gorgeous] but also the feeling of being in the atelier. You emerge from the elevator to deep green lime-washed walls and a plush waiting area with velvet couches and an antique jewelry vitrine. I wanted everything, the pearl-drop earrings and minimal veils. I couldn’t have found a designer who matched my style more than Danielle Frankel,” Green said.
The Danielle Frankel atelier was the first place she went shopping for a dress, which she chose for the wedding weekend a la two ensembles: the Luna silk pleated and hand-appliquéd lace gown with Manolo Blahnik for Danielle Frankel heels, as well as the Annika bustier with Rory pants.
It was like playing dress up, said Robb, “adding gloves, or different veils, playing with the length of the dress, it was a creative process and I trusted her wholeheartedly.”
When it comes to celebrity brides, the most important factor is, of course, loving the product.
“This is a serious atelier that makes crazy construction and I think that resonates with people too. They want to wear really well-made garments that they can trust will really look beautiful at the end of the day. We really go the extra mile as far as customer service and connecting with them. We go places; we do things for people that I think are beyond what’s expected, so that turns into a real relationship with people. At the end of the day that’s what you’re doing, you’re servicing real people, even if it’s a celebrity,” Frankel Hirsch said.
That kind of trust and recognition are helping the brand grow each year and branch into other categories.
On Wednesday, Frankel Hirsch is introducing the brand’s first in-house collection of footwear.
“This literally was born from market research,” she said. “We do a lot of alterations all day every day and the biggest thing people have problems with is their bridal shoes.”
Although there are a handful of brands offering wedding-specific white shoes, and Frankel Hirsch previously partnered with Manolo Blahnik on a limited collection in 2021, she saw a gap in the market for her vision of footwear, which the business was at a point to produce internally.
In addition, she’s had many clients seeking full head-to-toe wedding looks, including the gown with the brand’s veil and specialty seasonal accessories (such as belts, jewelry or hats), making the introduction of footwear a “no brainer.”
“I’m so excited to watch this because I know how eager people are to receive it. The amount of clients that are asking is outrageous. We’re really, really ready.”
Frankel Hirsch and her team approached the design of the 10 shoe styles — available for preorder on her site Wednesday, and at Net-a-porter in October — in the same way they create seasonal collections. They first sketched them and then worked with production in Italy to incorporate the brand’s signature architectural and painterly details from bodice to foot.
The ivory satin Kennedy pump was inspired by a photo Frankel Hirsch saw of a gown that was peeling away from the body, and the ivory leather Eve pump was initially draped on an employee’s foot. In addition, the hand-painted mesh ivory Beatrice ballet flats (available in a nude or ivory mesh base) hark back to the brand’s painterly gown and veil offerings, as seen on actress Rebecca Hall on the 2024 Met Gala carpet.
“It was the first dress I tried on and it was obviously right. But we all knew it needed something extra for the accessories. It felt like everyone in the room came to the same conclusion at once — a burgundy bag, shoes must have flowers…and body paint. It was so easy and creative and fun. And I loved how it came out in the end — like I was rising out of a lake of liquid flowers,” Hall told WWD of her strapless double layered silk organza gown with bubbled hem train, printed watercolor effect and hand-painted florals, styled with matching hand-painted floral ballet flats — a teaser for the footwear, which also includes sleek, classic ivory satin pumps, slingbacks and flats priced $790 to $1,190.
“What I would love to see is they become evergreen styles. I have no need to move things out unless they are overproduced and overworn,” Frankel Hirsch said, echoing the same confidence she has with her bridal designs.
It’s an instinct that’s serving her well.
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