Bridal Times had the opportunity to speak with Michael Bristow, Managing Director of Michael’s Bridal Fabrics to tell us about the latest trends in bridal fabrics and the company’s return to trade shows in Germany after the last two difficult years of the pandemic.
After the last two difficult years, what is like to be back exhibiting in Germany again?
We are very much looking forward to returning to Germany and meeting many existing customers most of whom we have not seen for 2-3 years. We also hope we will meet many new customers as well. After the European Bridal Week and Interbride, we would anticipate visiting customers later in the year that we are not able to meet at the shows for any reasons.
Have you noticed a change of preference in the types of fabrics ordered during this time?
We are still finding that many customers in Germany are very interested in Glitter/Sparkle tulles still. We can now offer a sample book dedicated just to plain and sparkle tulles. We have a few qualities of glitter that we can now offer in colours. We will have a few spare books that can be collected at the shows.
What are the most popular fabrics used in bridal or evening wear at the moment?
For bridal wear, our best-selling items right now are plain & glitter tulles, stretch crepes, and soft satins and duchess satins. In the case of evening wear, there are similar qualities, but in different colors. We’ve also had quite a bit of success with some embroidered tulle designs.
(left) Glitter Tulle, (right) Stretch Crepe
What about colors?
We are still finding that our strongest selling colours are Dusky Rose, Shell Pink, Duck Egg and Willow Green.
Michael’s Bridal Fabrics has introduced many interesting eco-friendly fabrics in recent years. Do you still see an upward trend?
Yes, we were looking into these kinds of products for the past 3 years, and are now starting to find there is quite a positive response to these articles. At present the biggest choice of eco-fabrics is in plain qualities in “Naturel Ivory colour”, but we do now also have laces which are recycled and ones with organic cotton. There are also eco-friendly European produced embroideries. We are also introducing some new and some existing qualities made on recycled tulle and using recycled embroidery thread. There are also a range of plain and self coloured small designs of fabrics produced from such things as Eucalyptus, Orange, Milk and Rose petals, and many customers are finding them very interesting. We have also started to offer a sample book for all kinds of eco products including anti static linings and a small number of edgings.
(left) Embroidery, (right) Eco-Friendly Lace
For your team, “Green is the ‘in’ Color”. Tell us a few things your business has done to stay “Eco-Friendly”.
We plan to become a carbon neutral company in time, but we did a self-assessment of what we were doing already, and then added more things to that, so currently all the new cardboard tubes we buy are recycled, we replaced towels with hand driers, we are also using recycled plastic sleeves for our sample books, and all the card and paper we use is from sustainable sources. We no longer give every customer a free v52 page pricelist, we encourage them to look online, but if a paper is required we make a small charge and give €1 to a charity for planting trees. The heating /ventilation uses modern air to air pumps to reduce the reliance on Gas central heating. We have also replaced many of the fluorescent tubes with LED bulbs that use a lot less pawer usage.
And now it has become easier for European clients to order fabrics from you. Tell us about it!
We have joined with some other British fabric companies and we now offer all EU customers the option of having all orders shipped via a central hub in France, so this means we now sell to those customers as Michael’s Bridal Fabrics Europe and this company is the first one to handle our goods in Europe, so we are responsible for paying customs clearance and duty that may be charged, so for most customers in Europe the only difference is that it takes around 7/10 days to get delivered, as we ship to France once a week. France being the exception, as they now pay local “French” tax as we are in fact a French registered company selling to them as a domestic company.
Lastly, what are some highlights that your team will be presenting at the European Bridal Week and Interbride this year?
We will have all the new articles from the past few years along with all the most popular articles. There are also quite a few new inexpensive edging and motif qualities. This will include all the eco-friendly qualities we are already running, and some new ones that include some we have not yet decided to run. We will have all our sample books on show.
Visit Michael’s Bridal Fabrics at the European Bridal Week (Stand 3.F332) from the 30th of April – 2nd of May, and the Interbride (Stand 3.E093) 22nd -24th May.
For further information, visit Michael’s Bridal Fabrics.