When Danielle Frankel founded her label in 2017, she was engaged and working out of a rented space in New York’s Garment District that she describes as “a literal closet”. Now, when clients enter the bridal designer’s studio, they’re immersed in her world: spacious rooms lined with chartreuse carpets, walls hung with tapestries, plush seating. The designer wants it to feel like her living room.

The grown-up space reflects her brand’s trajectory. Almost 10 years on, the designer has evolved and refined her brand’s aesthetic, opened a two-floor atelier and office space in New York and a boutique in Los Angeles, and has dressed some of the biggest names in the fashion and entertainment industries, from Alexandra Daddario to Charli XCX. Her then-fiancé, Joshua Hirsch, is now her CEO.

“I was going through that phase of getting married, and now, nine years later, I see it through a different lens,” she says of the way that her designs have matured from sleek and silky blazers and gowns to the draped and tailored architectural shapes she’s become known for. “I’ve had so many more conversations with women and had the ability to take the years under my belt and really focus on client feedback and exploration in design.”

Her most recent collection, which she’s referred to as a “rebirth”, is a signifier of that growth. The gowns illustrate Frankel’s range, from feathered numbers to ruched peplums. When Frankel meets with her mills, she doesn’t even look at their bridal offerings. Instead, she gravitates toward materials from jersey to horsehair, chiffon to organza — with lots of hand-painting later on. “When we were designing and shooting this imagery and we updated our website, it felt like a huge leap from where we were even two years ago,” Frankel says. “Looking at the work side by side, we really feel that we’re transitioning in such a beautiful way.”

Danielle Frankel came into the bridal market at the right time. Since the brand’s founding, the bridal industry has evolved — and ballooned — dramatically, as weddings in the Western world have shifted from single-day events to weekend-long affairs, replete not just with rehearsal dinners but also welcome drinks, recovery brunches, and oftentimes two to three outfit changes for the bride on her wedding night. This disruption in tradition mirrors the shift in desire toward more sleek, modern-looking designs. Alongside Frankel, brands like Wiederhoeft and Tanner Fletcher have gained traction for their refreshed approach to bridal, but, by and large, fashion girls uninterested in a trip to Kleinfeld are left to look to non-bridal brands if they want an ‘anti-bridal’ look. It’s why, almost a decade on, so many still turn to Danielle Frankel.

Her carefully curated aesthetic — distinctly recognizable in her studio, her LA boutique, and on Instagram — resonates with modern brides who want to come off as cool, not corny. “It’s not just about the gowns; it’s about the photography, it’s about the interiors,” Frankel says. “Everything in terms of our gowns is being designed within our world and our point of view and tastes.” It’s the reason, she believes, that Danielle Frankel has been able to capture the specific, fashion-forward audience that it has. “They want that from a brand that they are engaging with for their wedding gown.”

The brand declined to share revenue figures, but said that revenues grew 85% year-on-year in 2025, driven by direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales (making up approximately 80% of the brand’s total sales). Headcount also grew 50%, bringing the current size to about 60 people. Margins have increased year-on-year since Danielle Frankel’s founding.

As independent fashion brands lean further into bespoke bridal, Frankel’s competitors may well sit in the fashion space, rather than in the bridal world. But Frankel’s commitment to building out a universe that is squarely focused on the bride herself will continue to give her an edge. Crucially, this edge is Frankel’s ability not just to sense what a bride wants, but to push the client in new directions. This stewardship and innovation is what, she believes, will propel the business forward. “If we don’t continuously evolve what it means to be a bride, then we’re nothing,” Frankel says.

Flipping the script

The ubiquity of Frankel’s designs is impressive for a brand of under 10 years. The designer has fast become a go-to for the Hollywood and fashion crew — the same crowd that might bristle at the thought of poofy tule, champagne flutes, and bridal pedestals. This wasn’t achieved by following the bridal playbook.

The bridal industry, says Frankel’s partner and CEO Hirsch, is known to be an inefficient industry. Overhead costs are high, and brands are often highly reliant on wholesale bridal retailers. Hirsch credits his experience in finance and consulting with his approach to building a bridal business. “A lot of what we do is find the inefficiencies within an industry and say, just because brands have done it this way forever does not mean it’s the right way to do it,” Hirsch says. His and Frankel’s approach to building a brand aligns more with the fashion industry than it does bridal.

“This started with us making samples, shooting them, and hoping for the best. I rented a little closet out of a factory in the Garment District, just a block away from where we are right now,” Frankel says. “And just gown by gown, you grow the business.” She’s now on her fifth studio space, after sizing up in quick succession during the early years to make space for more sewing machines.

To survive as a small brand, Frankel went to lengths to avoid the traps emerging designers so often fall into. One being wholesale. “You see a lot of young brands starting with wholesale. They then lose every bit of leverage when 70, 80, 90% of their brand and revenue is coming from wholesale,” Hirsch says. Frankel intentionally limited her wholesale exposure until the brand was big enough to negotiate more favorable terms.

Now, wholesale accounts for 20% of the brand’s sales, stocked at sites including Net-a-Porter and Mytheresa. This, too, was intentional — an unorthodox approach for an industry built on bridal boutiques and salons. It’s another business-booster. “You can go on Net-a-Porter today and you can purchase [Danielle Frankel] designs that are essentially done in bulk production, which is not traditionally how wedding gowns have been produced,” Frankel says. But by offering these core pieces, the designer is able to cater to a wider range of brides who might not be able to afford a custom, semi-custom, or embroidered dress, but are keen to wear a design of hers, if not for the ceremony itself, as a second look or for their rehearsal dinner.

On the flip side, having her atelier in New York means Frankel is more amenable to customization than many bridal brands typically are. And in an era where social media exposure and education are high, brides are keen to add a personal touch, she says. Subtle changes range from a hand-sewn label with the wedding date, to custom lace appliqué and altered necklines and train lengths. There are commercial upsides, too, Hirsch adds (and it’s not just that customization costs more). “It’s some of the best research that we could possibly do, understanding what the client wants,” he says.

Getting the fashion industry’s seal of approval was another priority that isn’t usually top for bridal brands. It made a world of difference, Hirsch says. “Knowing that, if she could convince the fashion community that she’s a force to be reckoned with, we’d be able to convince a lot of people,” he says. By getting the stamp of approval from editors and stylists early on, Frankel fast got the word out. She got a Vogue write-up on her debut at New York Bridal Week. The following year, her sophomore collection received a Vogue Runway review; no small feat for such a young label. And in 2019, Frankel was the first bridal designer to participate in the Vogue/CFDA Fashion Fund, just two years after launching the brand.

These markers of success are typically reserved for capital-F fashion brands, but Frankel used them to her advantage, and is now a regular fashion magazine fixture for both her collections themselves and the frequency with which featured brides wear her designs.

Building the world

The Danielle Frankel brand world is a tightly considered aesthetic. It’s with this precision that Frankel and Hirsch are thinking about where to take the brand next. Bricks-and-mortar expansion in key markets is a priority. “We know the markets we need to be in and grow into, and we know the progression in which to do it,” Hirsch says, noting that the brand is actively moving on its international expansion, adding only that it will take the brand “across the Atlantic”.

Hirsch’s pre-bridal experience is informing the approach, thinking about boutiques like an airline’s hub and spoke system. “If you’re big enough, you naturally gravitate to flying out of Newark or Chicago. That’s how we’re planning our retail strategy,” he says. “We could sprinkle all around the US. We could have small shops in amazing cities like Chicago, Dallas, Miami, and Boston — and we’d do really well. Or we could do it big to Danielle’s dream and hope that if you build it, they will come.” This old adage is proving true; Frankel already welcomes plenty of international clients who come to town to shop.

These same clients are informing where Frankel will take the brand next. “We have the data because our website is super strong in tracking where clients are viewing us from, from an international perspective,” she says. “We know where they’re located, we know what they like, we understand more about them as we grow, and the customer base is growing.”

Though Frankel now incorporates more color into her collections, her focus remains squarely on the bride. “The core of our business is the bride — she’s our motivation for growth,” Frankel says. The emphasis is now on how Danielle Frankel can further capture the wedding world opportunity, which herself and Hirsch believe to be largely under-tapped. “My passion is in the wedding space and how to really impact this space, because I really think that we have so much growth and opportunity with the bride herself,” Frankel says. “We have such strength and understanding of what the client wants, who she is, where she’s going — which is really hard to do, especially at scale.”

As the business grows, Frankel’s number one priority is to continue to move the needle in her designs. “We want to bring good design and newness and surprise and delight to our clients,” she says. “I want people to have a reaction to it where they just want to stay in our imagery and be immersed with the product that we’re giving them, and grow that.”

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