It’s bridal bedlam! Cindy Fuentes tries on a dress at Kleinfeld for the ninth season of “Say Yes to the Dress.” The “madhouse” atmosphere’s a major change from the impeccable service at Kleinfeld’s original Bay Ridge location. (Michael Sofronski)
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When Parisa Arash, 31, went to Kleinfeld looking for a dress for her December wedding in Miami, she was expecting a calm, serene store where she’d be catered to with glasses of champagne and attentive saleswomen.
Instead, she got what she called “a madhouse.” Her unsuccessful May appointment at the Chelsea shop was stressful, crowded and rushed. “There were probably 20 other brides trying on dresses at the same time, so you never had a dedicated mirror or platform that was for you,” says Arash, an entrepreneur. “You had to stand around the middle of the floor waiting for someone to move . . . It’s literally a machine that’s pushing people through.”
Disgusted, Arash ended up buying her $6,500 gown from the Vera Wang Bridal House on the Upper East Side.
She’s just one of several disgruntled brides who say the NYC institution has ruined their wedding-dress shopping experience — and they place the blame on TLC’s hit reality show “Say Yes to the Dress,” which films there and purports to help brides find the wedding dress of their dreams.
The store has played the dual role of upscale shopping destination and film set for eight seasons, with a ninth premiering Dec. 28. But these days, many an affianced shopper is finding that what was once a mecca for practical, in-the-know New York brides has evolved into a retail circus that caters to gawking out-of-towners and a camera crew that, during production, overruns the 35,000-square-foot store four or five days a week, nine months a year.
Servicing a staggering 17,000 brides annually, it’s now a full-scale tourist destination: A kiosk in the lobby that opened in April sells T-shirts, hats and mugs that order the customer to “Just Say Yes.”
“They’ve gotten too big for their britches,” says Christina Martinez, a 31-year-old corporate travel account manager who had an appointment at the store in July for her upcoming Brooklyn Botanic Garden wedding.
“They’re relying on their notoriety. They’re national now and their service has suffered entirely.”
Founded in 1941, the store spent more than six decades on Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, a shopping haven viewed as well worth the schlep for New York brides seeking a personal touch.
“The store was very family-oriented. It was an Italian and Irish neighborhood with a lot of mom-and-pop shops. They catered to you, and it had a special touch,” says Joanne Cava, a lifelong Brooklyn resident who bought her dress at Kleinfeld 20 years ago.
“It was a neighborhood icon before it was ever a TV show,” says Felicia Favorito, who bought her wedding dress at the original Kleinfeld store in 1999, the third generation of her family to buy there.
But that was then: In late 2005, Kleinfeld moved to a bigger, more accessible Manhattan space — a deal with TLC was struck almost simultaneously.
The average episode draws 1.3 million viewers, and Kleinfeld now has a full docket of up to 105 90-minute appointments per day, with dozens of brides and their entourages constantly spilling out of the 28 dressing rooms.
The scene stunned bride Catherine Lee, a 27-year-old investment analyst, who lives in Boston and trekked to New York to shop for her gown in 2010.
“I was shocked about how crowded it was. [There were] a lot of younger people — teenagers or fans of the show — who weren’t even shopping for a dress,” says Lee.
This was especially jarring, she says, considering what it costs to shop there (dresses range from $2,000 to $30,000).
“They have really nice, really expensive dresses, so I was expecting a very calm atmosphere. I felt like I was at Loehmann’s,” says Lee.
Call it Magnolia Cupcake Syndrome. Overcrowding can be credited to the popularity of the show, as brides and their ever-larger entourages hope to peek behind the curtain, according to Kleinfeld co-owner Ronnie Rothstein.
“What the show has done for us is — it used to be an average of three people [that] come with the bride. Today, because of the show, they’ve got six, seven, eight people. There are no small bridal parties any more,” he says.
Though all brides are cast for the show well in advance of their appointments, many enthusiastic customers arrive — in costume, toting voting paddles or wearing homemade T-shirts — hoping to sneak on TV.
And the first thing you see when you enter the store is a large sign containing a release notice. “Please be aware that by entering Kleinfeld, you consent to your voice and likeness being videotaped and used without compensation for exploitation on television,” it reads. The bottom of the sign says, “If you do not wish to be on camera, please inform your sales consultant,” implying that a bride wanting to appear on the show is a foregone conclusion.
As for that camera crew? Arash described “maneuver[ing] around the cameras,” and having to stay quiet during filming.
“That just takes away from [the experience],” she says.
“You want to buy your dress from a place where you are the focus and everyone is there to make sure you have a great experience.”
Kleinfeld maintains that its staff is trained to sniff out bridal preferences: “It is a big store and it’s very busy . . . but we do try to treat each customer and each shopping experience as an intimate one-on-one experience,” says Jennette Kruszka, director of marketing and public relations at Kleinfeld.
“We can offer both the intimate one-on-one experience and the less intimate experience out in the store where everyone’s looking at you — some brides look for that.”
Carly Sposato, a 28-year-old quality manager at an alarm company in Alexandria, Va., thought that the dress she purchased at Kleinfeld was a blemish on an otherwise perfect wedding day.
Not only was she so stressed she “broke out into hives” during her appointment, her Anne Barge dress, for which she paid just under $4,000, arrived almost irreparably damaged, she claims — with mismatched seams and linings requiring lots of expensive tailoring. But, due to Kleinfeld policy, she was on her own.
“If you decide you’re going to do your tailoring outside of Kleinfeld, once you open the box, they’re no longer responsible for what happens,” Sposato says. (The shop doesn’t take returns on special-order items, according to Kruszka.)
Even after all of her tailor’s work, Sposato believed the dress couldn’t be fully salvaged.
“I just wanted to dance and let loose, and I did all of those things . . . but I will always be conscious of the fact that I was unhappy and not comfortable in my skin because of what I was wearing,” she says.
But perhaps the most visceral reaction women have to Kleinfeld is the condition of the floor samples. At least three brides recalled being forced into dirty gowns, sullied by dozens of women trying them on, day after day: “There were actual armpit sweat stains. And on the hem, it looked like it had been out in the street,” recalls Lee. Martinez found delicate fabric in tatters. And Arash tried on a dress at another boutique, and then asked to see the same dress during her Kleinfeld appointment. It was so battered that she didn’t even recognize it.
“On the show, it looks like this amazing wonderland of gorgeous dresses . . . But the samples are beaten to hell. You don’t even really get a good idea of what [they] look like,” Arash said.
But Kruszka says this is the exception to the rule, and that samples are monitored and dry-cleaned regularly. Still, she admits, “sometimes we may have missed it.”
And that’s enough to put some brides off.
“I don’t think that it’s a place where you can be a serious buyer. It’s really about the publicity of the show and selling souvenirs. A lot of people go there because of the show will buy something, if not a dress then one of the overpriced accessories,” says Lee. “And maybe that’s what they’re looking for, a high-margin souvenir.”
Would she recommend the store to other brides shopping for their gown? She thinks for a minute before answering: “Not sober.”