(Closed) Who knows about fabric? Advise me, please!

posted 8 years ago in Dress
Post # 1
Member
7975 posts
Bumble Beekeeper

Okay, let me start by being really honest – my dress budget? it’s tiny. Like… $400 including alterations kind of tiny. And I’m hoping to go lower than that. *hoping*

I tried on dresses today, for the first time. [Maybe I’ll post pictures another time; right now I’m too emotionally spent from 6 1/2 hours of dress shopping with my mom – 3 shops, and no, we don’t usually get along well, and no, I didn’t really find anything I loved.]

At David’s Bridal, the first place we went, there seemed to be two types of fabric. Both were listed as Polyster inside the dresses, but according to their website, the two are “Faile” and “Satin”. Satin, I’ve heard of. It’s soft, it’s thick, it feels like I expected dresses to feel. Faile though… the stuff reminds me of a picnic table cloth, minus the weird fuzzy underside that sticks to everything.

So my question is, what’s the deal with this faile stuff? Is it as cheapy as I’m assuming? Or just different from what I expected?

Has anyone bought a dress in it? I loved the shillouette of two of the dresses I tried on, but couldn’t get over feeling that they were cheap because of the material. Will it wrinkle like crazy? Or photograph weird? I’m hesistant, even though one dress was in my price range (on sale in store only), if I can find someone (like my GRANDMA) to do alterations for free, haha.

Okay, pics of the two dresses in question (not on me, sorry; later, I promise):

Style ES90808 by Galina

[attachment=636285,82853]

Style WG9854

[attachment=636285,82854]

Tagged: ,

Post # 3
Member
7779 posts
Bumble Beekeeper

Actually, faille is extremely sturdy and it takes a lot to wrinkle it. It’s a pretty common fabric to make formal dresses out of because it is to structured.

Post # 4
Member
420 posts
Helper bee

This doesn’t help you at all but just wanted to say that i love the style of #1 but i too was unsure of fabric. So id love to here the responses someone has on this 🙂

Post # 5
Member
7975 posts
Bumble Beekeeper

@Brew – it felt cheap to you too? 

Do you think it LOOKS cheap or just FEELS cheap? Because no one is going to be man handling my dress 😉 but it’s just not soft like the satin!

Post # 6
Member
7975 posts
Bumble Beekeeper

@Zippy – I didn’t see your comment earlier, that’s good to hear. Most of the ‘nicer’ dresses I tried on (at shops other than DB) seemed to be Satin. I don’t think I tried any Faile on at other shops – do you think that was a fluke?

anybody else have experience with Faile???

Post # 7
Member
342 posts
Helper bee
  • Wedding: April 2010

True silk faille isn’t rough, its just a bit more stiff and structured than satin is.  My dress is made from silk faille and its not super floaty or smooth (as satin would be), but it won’t wrinkle, it has a much heavier feel, its not as shiny, and (IMHO) it looks very sophisticated.

What you’d get at david’s bridal is likely a polyester faille – which is not going to be nearly as smooth or luxe looking.  Polyester satins are more common (and cheaper to make) so they tend to look nicer.

Post # 8
Member
420 posts
Helper bee

@daydream – I wouldn’t say it looked cheap, but it definetly didn’t look like a luxe fabric. I dont know that’s just my opinion. I would love to see it on someone though to see, it probably looks alot better on a bride. But if you don’t love it i would just skip these dresses, don’t limit yourself with just DB. How do you feel about used dresses?

Post # 9
Member
241 posts
Helper bee
  • Wedding: June 2010

Daydreamwanderer, I think you are confusing two different topics, material and weave.

The material is what the fabric is made of: silk (natural, made from silkworms’ cocoons), cotton (natural, made from the cotton plant), wool (natural, made from sheep’s wool), or polyester (man-made, made from chemicals).

The weave is how the yarn or threads are woven: a satin weave will be shiny (but needs a shiny base like silk or polyester to make the shine), faile (with ribbing), knit (not woven, but knit), chiffon, etc.

Often (but not always) what makes a dress look expensive or not expensive is less the weave than the material.

I notice that you live in China, land of cheap dressmaking. Why don’t you have a dress made there, of silk? Definitely could be custom-done under $400.

Post # 10
Member
7975 posts
Bumble Beekeeper

@olive – woah! That info is awesome! Thanks for explaining 🙂 that makes sense, and explains why the tags all said Polyester, even though the website says they’re Satin or Faile.

I’ve thought a lot about having a dress made in China; my worry is that I’ve had so many other clothes made there before, and it’s so hit or miss if they’re good or not. Most of the online dresses you can buy are made within a hundred miles of each other, and that area is thousands of miles from me. 🙂 So I’d either have to take the chance of doing it by mail, or else have it done by a tailor who has never done an American style wedding gown before, and knows next to nothing about American wedding traditions. My Chinese is good, but not great, and few people in my city speak English, haha.

Yeah, I’ve thought a lot about getting it made in China; I’m still on the fence.

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