Say No to the Dress: Why Women Are Trading Gowns for Wedding Suits

ON MAY 12, 1971, Nicaraguan socialite Bianca Pérez-Mora Macías married Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger in a shotgun wedding in Saint-Tropez. (Bianca was four months pregnant with their daughter Jade.) Mr. Jagger flew in many of the estimated 75 guests on a chartered plane with only a day’s notice, and such superstars as Brigitte Bardot, Paul McCartney and Ronnie Wood attended. Although the union disintegrated after seven years, and Bianca told Vanity Fair in 1986 that “a rock star is the worst husband a woman could have,” her wedding went down in rock ’n’ roll history. Not only did she wed one of the era’s biggest heartthrobs, she shunned froufrou wedding gowns and opted for a risqué white suit by Yves Saint Laurent. The jacket exposed her bare chest; the bias-cut skirt concealed her pregnant belly; the veiled floppy hat projected a breezy sort of drama; and platform sandals punctuated the look.

While the outfit might not provoke comment now, it did then—in part because Ms. Jagger wore nothing beneath the plunging jacket. “It was really risky to not only have a jacket instead of a dress, but this huge décolleté,” said Florence Müller, an art and fashion historian who curated the 2010 exhibition “Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective” at Paris’s Petit Palais. Ms. Müller suggested that Ms. Jagger’s suit might have been an offshoot of the late Saint Laurent’s subversive spring 1971 couture collection. Known as “La Collection du Scandale,” it took inspiration from sex workers who frequented Paris’s Bois de Boulogne and from silhouettes popularised during the German occupation of France in the 1940s.

More than 50 years later, Ms. Jagger’s confidently unconventional suit feels newly relevant. Even before the Covid era, which upended countless couples’ wedding plans and called for less-formal celebrations, women were embracing alternatives to the prim white wedding gown. Just look at model and author Emily Ratajkowski, who cited Ms. Jagger’s wedding ensemble as an influence when she chose a mustard Zara suit and a veiled brown hat for her 2018 wedding.

In a recent 2,000-person survey by market-research agency OnePoll, one in five respondents agreed that the white wedding dress is a dated tradition. “The prospect of wearing a fluffy white dress was frankly embarrassing to me,” admitted Kaelin Goulet, 37, who works in consulting in New York. For her October 2022 wedding, Ms. Goulet enlisted Isabel Wilkinson Schor, founder of New York brand Attersee, to tailor the label’s ivory vest and matching trousers to perfection. “I wanted to be comfortable and to be able to rewear my outfit,” said Ms. Goulet. “My mom wore a white shirtdress when she and my dad wed in 1984, and I have vivid memories from my childhood of her wearing her ‘wedding dress’ to work on summer days.”

For a bridal suit, “fit is critical,” said New York stylist Micaela Erlanger. “It’s about being effortless,” she said, but there’s a difference between “relaxed elegance” and looking sloppy. Ms. Erlanger condones sets by brands including Danielle Frankel and Ralph Lauren, both of which deliver “exquisite tailoring.” New York bridal stylist Anny Choi, meanwhile, advocates looking beyond typical bridal brands, noting that New York designer Christopher John Rogers offers refreshing options. Going nontraditional, she added, doesn’t mean buying the trendiest thing off the runway. “Subtle yet impactful styling choices”—like Ms. Jagger’s decision to forgo a blouse and add a sun hat—will make the outfit, she said.

The fact that Ms. Jagger’s suit echoed her new husband’s three-piece—blurring gender lines—made it all the more memorable. “Bianca made this combination modern and sexy and really feminized [the] jacket,” which was largely reserved for men at the time, said Ms. Choi. Bicoastal gallerist Caroline Luce similarly subverted gender aesthetics in her 2020 Big Sur wedding. Ms. Luce, 37, who was originally set on a suit, found her dream bridal outfit in a black Ralph Lauren tuxedo dress. “Having my own version of a black tuxedo was a perfect balance to [my husband] Nino’s tuxedo,” said Ms. Luce. “It felt like such an elegant but understated way to enter into this next chapter of our lives—visually in tandem, side by side in simple suits.”

In her Yves Saint Laurent suit, Ms. Jagger was a woman who knew her power. Its “rebellious attitude,” Ms. Choi suggested, explains “why brides today continue to reference this look.”

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