Bowie Rae, wedding designer 'IT girl', opens boutique in Woonona

A Wollongong seaside suburb has landed firmly on the fashion map after cool-kid bridal industry disruptor Bowie Rae leased out shop space on the town's main drag.

Four years after launching her debut collection, designer Manal Waugh has opened the label's first studio in a converted cafe on Lawrence Hargrave Drive, a move that came as a surprise even to her.

"It was always going to be either Sydney, Melbourne or London," Waugh told the Mercury, of her longstanding plans for a bricks and mortar store.

"But Woonona actually felt really right. I just thought I'd check what was available and this place popped up right down the road from my house. It's been a cafe for so long, but it has this beautiful big window."

Raised in Bankstown before moving to Woonona via Thirroul, Waugh spent 14 years working as an arts and English teacher at Menai High School before her own wedding gave her cause for a big career change.

Read more: Get ready: 'addictive' donut stall about to open in Shell Cove

She found wedding dress shopping a "rude and very cold" experience, and even after getting her fashion designer sister to make her gown, didn't get the look she wanted.

"I didn't really hone in on my own style; I listened to everybody else and was very passive and ended up wearing something that wasn't me. I ended up thinking, 'I can do something better. I know fashion. How hard can it be?'."

Not all that hard, as it turned out, though it took self-belief and some clever turns.

Waugh's big break came early, after she approached former Wollongong-based model Rebecca Jobson to wear one of her gowns at Jobson's 2019 nuptials to surf legend Taj Burrow.

Pictures of the couple's Margaret River wedding made the pages of Vogue magazine, with Rebecca noting she'd "fallen in love with [Waugh's] pieces".

More advantageous press followed later that year when a storm in a teacup-style controversy erupted over a Bowie Rae model bride photographed with her nipples visible through her wedding gown.

As one detractor put it, "it is all fun and games until your great-grandparents can see your nipples".

Waugh laughed off the critics and used the platform to tout the label's allegiance to "non-bridey brides", slow fashion and sustainable and ethical practices (the brand remains an entirely on-shore operation, she says).

"We're really about shaking off the puritan bride feel and just being yourself," she told the Mercury.

"If you look at bridal to inspire bridal, then you keep it all locked in. I look to the runway.

"I thought it was such a niche market; it's not a niche market at all, it's just women who like fashion and don't want to wear a wedding dress, and there's many of them."

Waugh has made her name with texture-rich, classic silhouettes with a dose of devil-may-care sewn in.

The brand takes an innovative focus on separates, meaning the bride can mix and match tops and bottoms, creating an almost-custom gown "without the price tag".

One classic combination sees a dreamy, voluminous sheer skirt paired with a blazer cinched at the waist with an unconventional belt of black. A pencil skirt finds its timeless friend in a silk-tulle halter.

"I've got designs up to my elbows. Sometimes I dream of the dresses and I wake up and quickly sketch them," Waugh said.

"We make body suits, so it's 'wedding dress by day, lingerie by night', then they can wear it with jeans one day."

Waugh hopes the label's Wollongong mooring will lead to fruitful partnership with other bridal industry creatives and will tap into a strong market of brides bound for the Southern Highlands.

"The South Coast is booming with the most beautiful and inspiring creatives," Waugh said.

"Teaming up with the other cool kids of the South Coast like Hero Florist, Mrs Gibbons, or the beautiful story-telling of Sea-People Photography ... Bowie Rae has the vision of collating all the local rebel creatives and creating a one-stop-hub for all things cool in bridal."

Reading this on mobile web? Download our news app. It's faster, easier to read and we'll send you alerts for breaking news as it happens. Download in the Apple Store or Google Play.