Wed is a word that carries a double meaning. Per the Oxford English Dictionary, it can signify “to get married,” but also “to combine two things, two factors or qualities, especially desirable ones.” It’s in that second sense that London-based designers Amy Trinh and Evan Phillips have built their bridalwear label, WED.
The story begins – as many fashion stories do – at Central Saint Martins, where Trinh and Phillips met whilst completing their BA in Womenswear. Their friendship, as Trinh puts it, was built out of a “mutual respect for each other’s work.” After graduating, the pair set out to carve their own paths in the industry: Trinh launched her career working for the likes of Louis Vuitton, Craig Green, Stella McCartney, COS, and Susan Fang, and Phillips for designers like Richard Quinn and Simone Rocha.
The idea for WED emerged in 2018, when Trinh – newly engaged – found herself searching for a wedding dress that did not exist. The market felt bound by convention, brimming with tradition yet devoid of imagination. So, she contacted her old classmate to see if he might be interested in designing a dress for the occasion. As Trinh and Phillips began sketching out ideas for this elusive gown, it occurred to them that their collaboration could be pointing them towards something bigger: a bridalwear label designed for the unique bride.
Their intuition was not misplaced. Six years later, Trinh and Phillips have fashioned WED into a highly coveted label, a quiet disruptor in the otherwise conservative realm of bridalwear. Its house codes, hand-draped silhouettes, ruffled hems, unusual textures, have found a growing audience among a design-conscious, fashion-forward crowd.
Part of WED’s distinctiveness lies in the alchemy between its founders. “It just works,” Trinh says, “because you get this darkness and oddness that comes from Evan’s side of things, and then this softness and femininity that comes from mine.” That push and pull gives their gowns a tension that feels both unexpected and exciting. It is also the lens through which they continue to challenge not only what a wedding dress might look like, but what the contemporary wedding, and the contemporary bride, might represent in an ever-changing world. It’s from this vantage point that Trinh and Phillips sat down with METAL to reflect on their practice, their process, and the evolving place of bridalwear today.
Amy and Evan, it’s a pleasure to be speaking with you both.
Amy: It’s a pleasure to be speaking with you, too!
Let’s start at the beginning. You met at Central Saint Martins?
Amy: Yeah, so we met at Saint Martins, where we were both studying a BA in Womenswear. We shared a table in final year.
Evan: It was the first year that we were at King’s Cross, and there was this whole hoo-ha about the fact that Saint Martins had moved to a new building, and it wasn’t Charing Cross anymore. Our final year was the first year there, and everyone was crammed on this one table in this huge building. There must have been like twelve of us on that one table.
Amy: Oh my god, it was so bad. So yes, we were friends throughout our entire BA, but that final year was when we became really good friends. After that, Evan went off to do an MA, and I went off to work in the industry. Then, I got engaged and that’s when I asked Evan about doing this dress together, and that eventually led to us starting WED.
Evan: It was the first year that we were at King’s Cross, and there was this whole hoo-ha about the fact that Saint Martins had moved to a new building, and it wasn’t Charing Cross anymore. Our final year was the first year there, and everyone was crammed on this one table in this huge building. There must have been like twelve of us on that one table.
Amy: Oh my god, it was so bad. So yes, we were friends throughout our entire BA, but that final year was when we became really good friends. After that, Evan went off to do an MA, and I went off to work in the industry. Then, I got engaged and that’s when I asked Evan about doing this dress together, and that eventually led to us starting WED.
Did you know immediately that you would work well together?
Evan: I don’t think at school we ever thought we could work together in this way, but yeah, it just happened.
Amy: I think we just had mutual respect for each other’s work. We understood each other creatively, but we were very different in terms of style and how we were doing things. But somehow together, it just works because you get this darkness and oddness that comes from Evan’s side of things, and then this softness and femininity that comes from my side of things. Through that, we’ve created the world of WED. It’s not individually ours, but it’s ours together.
Evan: Our touch points are actually quite different when I think about it. Our influences are quite different, but they work quite well together.
Amy: I think we just had mutual respect for each other’s work. We understood each other creatively, but we were very different in terms of style and how we were doing things. But somehow together, it just works because you get this darkness and oddness that comes from Evan’s side of things, and then this softness and femininity that comes from my side of things. Through that, we’ve created the world of WED. It’s not individually ours, but it’s ours together.
Evan: Our touch points are actually quite different when I think about it. Our influences are quite different, but they work quite well together.
This is something I hear quite often when I talk to people in creative partnerships. The strength of the collaboration doesn’t rest on shared references or identical starting points. What matters more is the way two personalities, two ways of working, can fuse into something altogether new.
Amy: Yes, that’s how we feel.
Amy, as you mentioned, the idea for WED came out of your frustrations when it came to finding a wedding dress of your own. Could you expand on this? What was missing from the world at the time?
Amy: When I got engaged and when I started looking for a dress, nothing really spoke to me. It felt like there wasn’t anyone making things that were creative or fashionable. I started imagining what this dress would look like, and I realised that there was nothing out there to match the idea I had in my head. The other day, Evan and I were talking about timelessness. I think it was the timelessness mixed in with a challenging aspect that was missing from the landscape. So, when I approached Evan, I knew that we could do it because both of us have that energy already. (Evan was working at Simone Rocha at the time). We just felt like it would have been a fun thing to do together.
What was it like getting married in a dress that you designed?
Amy: So… I never ended up getting married.
Oh, that’s a plot twist!
Amy: Yeah. [Laughs] I was engaged and then it kind of… yeah, it didn’t happen. But I’m engaged again.
Congratulations.
Amy: So, we are going to make that dress. I’m sure it will happen. [Laughs].
Has your style changed much since that original design?
Amy: No, I don’t think so. I mean, I think that we’re always evolving. I love the stuff we create because I’m always like, Oh, I’d wear that. Every time we make something new, I’m like, That’s the dress. Then we make another thing, and I’m like, No, that’s the dress!
Evan: It’s interesting because even though the styles have evolved and you can see the refinement every season, we still reference things that we did like, six years ago. A lot of our reference points are still rooted in those experiments we did way back at the very beginning. I think maybe it’s the naivety of those ideas that we are still attracted to because they feel like they haven’t been fully explored. Working with bridal is interesting because there’s a really high standard of expectation. It’s about taking those ideas that come from somewhere quite playful and fun and experimental, and figuring out how they can work in this incredibly high-level industry with incredibly high levels of expectations.
Evan: It’s interesting because even though the styles have evolved and you can see the refinement every season, we still reference things that we did like, six years ago. A lot of our reference points are still rooted in those experiments we did way back at the very beginning. I think maybe it’s the naivety of those ideas that we are still attracted to because they feel like they haven’t been fully explored. Working with bridal is interesting because there’s a really high standard of expectation. It’s about taking those ideas that come from somewhere quite playful and fun and experimental, and figuring out how they can work in this incredibly high-level industry with incredibly high levels of expectations.
That point around expectations is an interesting one, because for many people, a wedding dress is the most expensive garment they’ll purchase in their lifetime. How does that factor come into play during the design process?
Evan: Yeah, it’s funny because when we started, we had this idea that people will want to wear these garments like a less formal wedding dress. We didn’t do any corsetry in the beginning. We were very anti-corset. We didn’t want anything that felt traditional. But over time, we’ve realised the significance of the one day dress. Like you say, it’s the most expensive thing someone’s going to buy, so there’s this emotional weight, an emotional value that is enduring. I think that’s what’s so special about bridal. The dresses are complex, and the fabrics are beautiful. There are always these touch points where we nod to some of those more traditional elements. We want to ensure that the garments carry that weight for our clients, because that is their expectation. It’s really interesting for us to think about how we can introduce those elements that come from what might be traditional bridal wear, and how we can work them into our world. It’s been an interesting evolution.
There are so many emotions attached to a wedding day; it’s like a mixture of nerves and anticipation and, of course, joy and excitement. How you go about translating those complex emotions into a garment?
Amy: Yeah, that’s a good question. When we design something, we can’t always predict how people will react to it or how they’ll feel in it, because it’s so different for everyone. One dress might have this amazing response immediately from somebody, but then for someone else, it’s just not it. So, when we design, I don’t think we design with that last day in mind, actually. I think we design with pragmatism.
Evan: We’ll think things like, this corset worked really well in every fitting we did last season. So, therefore, we should think about how we can take this corset forward. Or like, last season, we introduced these adjustable elements to the corset, and that was because we did so many fittings with corsets where we were like, we need to add an adjustable element here, so people have peace of mind. So, we were like, okay, how do we work that in? I think we design in this pragmatic way, where we’re testing ideas and seeing if they land.
Evan: We’ll think things like, this corset worked really well in every fitting we did last season. So, therefore, we should think about how we can take this corset forward. Or like, last season, we introduced these adjustable elements to the corset, and that was because we did so many fittings with corsets where we were like, we need to add an adjustable element here, so people have peace of mind. So, we were like, okay, how do we work that in? I think we design in this pragmatic way, where we’re testing ideas and seeing if they land.
The bridal sphere is incredibly crowded. And now with social media, the imagery and the trends that emerge are continuous. Do you think much about bridal trends?
Evan: For me, we still have that Saint Martins mindset, which is: if everyone is going that way, go the other way. That’s very much the way we design. It’s about us coming up with interesting ideas that we haven’t seen before. We like to introduce things that might be challenging in the moment, but in two years’ time will become more understandable. We had this sheer dress last season that was structured, but sheer. We thought it was a unique idea, but we weren’t sure if it was going to hit. But it did, which is weird, because we thought it was going to be so challenging. I think the only time that we’re ever referencing trends is when it comes to a commercial sales perspective, where it’s like, all our brides last season liked this one thing, so it should factor in somewhere. I think that’s as far as it goes. It sounds terrible but I find it kind of annoying when I see things that we did maybe like two years ago become super, super trendy. Bridal’s very specific in that it moves in that way. When one person jumps, I think everybody kind of follows.
Amy: Yeah, I think we tend to reference our own things. Like, we reference what works for us rather than what works for others. So, when we were doing these draped drop waist styles, and when we saw that they had become super popular, we decided to continue doing it because that’s where we started. We reference our own work quite a lot – or ideas that we perhaps hadn’t explored fully.
Amy: Yeah, I think we tend to reference our own things. Like, we reference what works for us rather than what works for others. So, when we were doing these draped drop waist styles, and when we saw that they had become super popular, we decided to continue doing it because that’s where we started. We reference our own work quite a lot – or ideas that we perhaps hadn’t explored fully.
How do you deal with copycats?
Amy: We have a shared iPhone album. [Laughs].
I love that. That’s something I would do.
Evan: I think it’s a compliment at the end of the day. From a business perspective, it can be annoying when other people’s strategy is to copy something you’ve done, but to undercut you in price or quality, but I think it happens to every bridal brand that’s innovating in this space, because bridal works differently to ready-to-wear. So, if there’s a popular trend in the space, a brand can just release one dress within that trend and then market the hell out of it and do very well. So, from a business perspective, you’re like, Okay, fair enough, that’s a clever way to make loads of money off of a trend. But yeah, I don’t know, we have this thing of always trying to look forward. Since what we work on is quite complicated, if we get too distracted, we’d never be able to finish what we’re doing.
Amy: But there are times when there is almost an exact copy, which is when we would message the brand personally. We would never out them publicly – we’re very much not those people – but we would message them personally, especially if they’re also a small brand like ours. Because then, it’s like, you don’t really need to do that. You have the space to create your own ideas. But you know, we can’t really stop those things from happening. In the end, it just forces us to keep trying new things and exploring new ideas.
Evan: Yeah, I think the difference between a brand like ours and a brand that maybe works in that way is when you see a WED dress, you know it’s a WED dress. Whereas with other brands, you might see a dress that’s beautiful, but you know it’s somebody else’s aesthetic. Do you know what I mean? I think that’s what’s important for us. Our mentality is that we have to maintain a true aesthetic and to have signature pieces.
Amy: But there are times when there is almost an exact copy, which is when we would message the brand personally. We would never out them publicly – we’re very much not those people – but we would message them personally, especially if they’re also a small brand like ours. Because then, it’s like, you don’t really need to do that. You have the space to create your own ideas. But you know, we can’t really stop those things from happening. In the end, it just forces us to keep trying new things and exploring new ideas.
Evan: Yeah, I think the difference between a brand like ours and a brand that maybe works in that way is when you see a WED dress, you know it’s a WED dress. Whereas with other brands, you might see a dress that’s beautiful, but you know it’s somebody else’s aesthetic. Do you know what I mean? I think that’s what’s important for us. Our mentality is that we have to maintain a true aesthetic and to have signature pieces.
I think authorship is incredibly important – especially in this so-called content-first world we live in. Which brings me to my next question: how have you found starting and growing a brand in the digital age?
Evan: We’ve had to literally learn as we go. You don’t get taught anything at school about having an actual business. It’s lucky for us that there are two of us; I don’t know how anyone would do it by themselves. Also, when we went to Saint Martins, there wasn’t even Instagram. None of these things existed until about the time we graduated. I remember people in the early days being like, “Oh, you should get an Instagram and post your work there,” and I’d be like, What’s Instagram? [Laughs] I think we have been quite lucky to have had experience in the industry pre-Instagram. We’ve had an experience that is very manual and offline. But bringing that world into the online space has been an interesting process. We’ve recently realised that we will always have to maintain that offline experience, because it’s such a key part of bridal. People will always want to try the dresses on, and they’ll always want to feel the fabric. We do offer people the option to buy the dresses online, but I don’t think anyone has ever just straight-up clicked and bought a dress. There’s always at least a conversation, even if that conversation is done online. It’s been interesting trying to build a business that is so tactile within the online space.
Yeah, it very much subverts that traditional showroom model – you know, where you go into the boutique with your mum and your bridesmaids and your friends and you have a glass of champagne. Maintaining those personal touchpoints must be a challenge when you’re operating online.
Evan: I think when you’re buying a wedding dress, you just want to be reassured and you want to trust that the person on the other end will give you exactly what it is that you want and need. We do have an offline experience; people come to the atelier, and we fit them personally. So, if we have a London bride or someone who can travel, that’s how we do it. I don’t know how all our retailers personally do their appointments, but I definitely think the people we work with have a more modern approach to the bridal experience, which is interesting.
How do you imagine the role of the wedding dress evolving as weddings become more experimental?
Evan: That’s a really good question, actually. I think people are definitely thinking about the dress in different ways. But I do still think it has that weight that it’s always had for a lot of people. This is why when we started, we had a really big conversation about changing the idea of who the bride is and opening up the conversation to people who maybe never thought they would get married, or people who aren’t those traditional wedding people. I think that’s where we try to push it; like, to bring people in that maybe have no relation to the traditional wedding industry. Because Amy and I are not those people at all. Like, we’re not people who dream about weddings. I think that’s where we also stand out a little bit in the space. For a lot of brands, the aesthetic has changed, but the bride has stayed the same. Whereas for us, it’s more about opening the conversation to people who maybe never wanted any involvement in the wedding industry. They never thought that a wedding was for them, and it’s like, well, a wedding can be literally anything you want it to be.
It's funny you say that, because right before I jumped on this call, I was showing a friend your dresses, and she said to me, “I’ve never really wanted to have a wedding, but I would have one just so I could wear one of these dresses.” So, I think what you’ve just described, Evan, is something that resonates with a lot of people.
Evan: Yeah, that’s what we work towards.
Can either of you think of any historical bridal moments or dresses or figures that you find radical or inspiring?
Evan: Oh, that’s such a good question. I don’t know…
Amy: How historical?
Amy: How historical?
However you want to interpret it! For instance, I think about Victoria Beckham’s purple wedding party dress all the time.
Evan: Was that Vera Wang?
Her actual wedding ceremony dress was Vera Wang, but the purple dress she wore to the party was by Antonio Berardi.
Evan: Actually, when we first started out, we did talk about Vera Wang quite a lot because of her cultural significance and what she did to bridal. Because of that thirty-year time frame, we were kind of feeling like the industry needed that refresh again. I remember in the beginning being like, we want to shake up the bridal industry like she did thirty years ago because her aesthetic is still enduring. Even now, there are so many vintage wedding shops online who acquire these pristine Vera Wang dresses from the 1990s, and you’re like, that dress literally looks exactly like so many things that are happening right now. You see it come full circle, and they still feel strangely modern because she had that oddness. Even though they’re romantic and maybe traditional looking, they still have this element of oddness. She’s really still the boss in the bridal industry, I think.
When you’re starting a new collection, where are you looking for inspiration? I assume you’re not looking at other bridal gowns.
Evan: I think it comes from two different places. We always try and come up with an idea for a motif, which normally comes from everybody on the team looking through books in libraries to find unusual artworks that might have a motif that we could interpret somehow with our hand. It could literally be the most random graphic from an artwork, and it’s like, how do we interpret that into a technique? It becomes very technical, and it’s a technique that comes from this one reference point. We all then work together to evolve it. Then, the other thing is referencing very old couture dresses for their finish and technique and detail. This is something we do quite a lot.
Amy: I think we sent everyone to research maybe eight months ago or something, and we had these boards in the studio. And because we’re juggling so many things, we don’t even look at it properly for another four months. Then we start draping, and we don’t realise that we’re already referencing some of the artworks that we’ve already seen. We’re pulling subconsciously from those things. That’s why we like to keep the boards up. Even if they don’t feel super relevant to us at the time, they are just kind of there to inspire us. And then somehow, it works its way into what we’re doing. I draped this dress last week, and I realised it’s something that I’m pulling from these artworks that we have on the board. This is kind of how we work, because we don’t sit down and go, this is the narrative for the collection. For us, it’s more like combining lots of references that have interested us over a period of time. I think it annoys people when we do a press release because it literally doesn’t make sense. [Laughs].
Amy: I think we sent everyone to research maybe eight months ago or something, and we had these boards in the studio. And because we’re juggling so many things, we don’t even look at it properly for another four months. Then we start draping, and we don’t realise that we’re already referencing some of the artworks that we’ve already seen. We’re pulling subconsciously from those things. That’s why we like to keep the boards up. Even if they don’t feel super relevant to us at the time, they are just kind of there to inspire us. And then somehow, it works its way into what we’re doing. I draped this dress last week, and I realised it’s something that I’m pulling from these artworks that we have on the board. This is kind of how we work, because we don’t sit down and go, this is the narrative for the collection. For us, it’s more like combining lots of references that have interested us over a period of time. I think it annoys people when we do a press release because it literally doesn’t make sense. [Laughs].
We’re running out of time, so I wanted to ask you a final question. Thinking about how bridal gowns often stay in a family for a lifetime or even for generations, I wanted to cast your minds to the future. If a WED dress was placed in, let’s say, a museum a hundred years from now, what story would you want it to tell about the person who wore it and the era in which it was made?
Evan: Oh, I love this question.
Amy: Oh my god, I was literally thinking about this yesterday! I was like, I would love to have something in a museum one day. That’s so random. But yeah, I don’t know. I think a lot of the people who are our actual clients, they always have a very strong sense of self and a strong sense of style. I would hope that this person has a rebellious nature in whatever they do. I don’t know, maybe they’re activists, or maybe they’ve influenced art or culture in a rebellious way.
Evan: For me, I would want their narrative to align with ours, in that they take their rebellious spirit to whatever they do. I feel like we haven’t made that dress yet, but we will one day.
Amy: Oh my god, I was literally thinking about this yesterday! I was like, I would love to have something in a museum one day. That’s so random. But yeah, I don’t know. I think a lot of the people who are our actual clients, they always have a very strong sense of self and a strong sense of style. I would hope that this person has a rebellious nature in whatever they do. I don’t know, maybe they’re activists, or maybe they’ve influenced art or culture in a rebellious way.
Evan: For me, I would want their narrative to align with ours, in that they take their rebellious spirit to whatever they do. I feel like we haven’t made that dress yet, but we will one day.
That feels like a good place to leave things. Thank you both so much, this was a joy.
Evan: Thank you, Jasmine!
Amy: Thanks Jasmine.
Amy: Thanks Jasmine.
