All the rage?
Trash the Dress is pulling the tulle over your eyes
By Tara Murtha
Published: January 26th, 2008 | 11:50am
Hailed as the latest trend in wedding photography in the New York Times and Salon, Trash the Dress (TTD) has been summarized like this: after the wedding, the bride slips back into The Dress for another photo shoot where, this time, she destroys the dress in pursuit of “edgy” photos for her wedding albums.
The aesthetic mimics the sensibility of glossy-mag fashion spreads. Carefully preened women smile, look regally into the horizon, or point a blank stare into the lens while posing in dirty or gritty environments. Common images are of models floating, carcass-like, in mossy bogs, dangling off farm equipment, or rolling around on a beach a la Madonna’s Cherish video.
So some people like to play model. It’s not news. Whether it’s strip-mall Glamour Shots, a trendy Dita von Teese-inspired retropolitan boudoir noir shoot, or drunk and dirty Polaroids, getting dolled-up and mugging for the camera can be fun.
So what’s the big deal? What is it about Trash the Dress that has netted the premiere website (trashthedress.wordpress.com) well over a million hits in less than a year and inevitable ink in this spring’s bridal mags?
What’s fascinating about TTD is not what it is. It’s vanity shots, people. What’s fascinating is what it is not - but says it is.
First, the label “Trash the Dress” is a somewhat misleading, sensational (and effective) marketing gimmick. It’s good PR to repackage an existing service for a niche demographic, herald “a trend” to help usher it into a crowded marketplace, and to brand it with a provocative label.
And it IS provocative. Just read the indignation in many posts on the site. Detractors criticize brides for wasting the dress instead of donating it to charity. The pro-TTD crowd retorts that it’s their right to be as wasteful as they wanna be.
But the real friction is not between horrified, sanctimonious do-gooders and their bratty resistors. It’s not about the dress or what to do with it.
It seems most brides don’t actually, uh, trash the dress. In fact, reading through comments reveals that most brides don’t actually ruin the dress - nothing a little dry cleaning won’t fix - and some who want to (appear to) go all out simply buy second dress to use in the shoot.
OK, so women all over the world aren’t actually trashing their wedding dresses to “make memories.” So why does it still seem so creepy?
Perhaps it’s the condescending way it’s marketed to brides. The wedding industry is already plenty guilty of enshrouding simple products and services with enough pseudo-psychological sentimentality to choke a Disney princess. Et tu, photographers?
The sales pitches are like the horny toad’s come-on at the local bar: patronizing, kind of smarmy, and pretty stupid.
According to the pros (selling you stuff), purchasing a TTD photo shoot seals your commitment to the groom; means you are a risk-taker; and finally, with more than a whiff of wet-palm last-ditch salesmanship, some say the shoot is therapeutic relief from the oppression of your wedding day - the same day the rest of the wedding industry relentlessly markets as the most important day of your life to finesse you into buying crap like cake jewelry.
The idea that trashing, or pretending to trash, your wedding dress symbolizes commitment to your new husband is absurd. The wedding covered that. And let’s be real ladies, no one is going to rock the dress from their first wedding at a second one. (And besides, where does the leave the burgeoning Vows Renewal industry?)
There’s an element of truth to the risk-taking shtick. Reviewing TTD photos reveals there is the very real risk of looking ridiculous. To be sure, there are some stunning shots. There are talented photographers out there executing professional shoots of attractive women in their wedding gowns and calling it TTD. But the majority look like a tragic ANTM reject prints. (Some veer way into the ick, like the photos of a bride crumpled in mud with her hands tied behind her back or being stuffed into the trunk of a car. Weird.)
You also, of course, run the risk of sinking into further debt by ballooning your wedding budget even more.
Paying a photog to immortalize your hot self dangling off a tractor is fine if that’s your thing. But come on! We’ll do it if we feel like it, not to sanctify connubial commitment, feel like a daredevil, or symbolize how stressful the wedding day was.
Please stop condescending to women by inflating simple services with some deep schmaltzy sentimentality. We don’t believe Botox-ing our laugh lines is freedom of expression and we certainly don’t believe swimming in our wedding dress means we love our partners more.
Me? I’ll stick with the Polaroids.
Issue #34
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