At the Happy Isles bridal salon on Spring street, owner Lily Kaizer sorted through the racks and pulled out a vintage Givenchy dress: black with metallic gold details and all the volume that you would expect from '80s fashion. This is Kaizer's favorite piece in the store at the moment—although not quintessentially bridal, she is confident that the right girl at the right time will walk in and immediately understand it.
Since 2016, Kaizer has been sourcing vintage bridal and selling it out of salons with pastel rugs and floral couches, the perfect space for girlish dreams to culminate—first in Los Angeles, now also in New York City. She dates her love for fashion back to her California childhood, when she would watch old films and daydream about the costumes, and sort through vintage stores when she was a bit older. In adulthood, Kaizer took it upon herself to not only curate her dream closet, but also share it with the public and form connections with soon-to-be brides as they select looks for what is understood as one of the biggest fashion moment of their lives.
Ahead, we chat with Kaizer about starting her own business, her innate love for vintage fashion, and the rise of the vintage bride.
What were you doing before Happy Isles?
"I was working in fashion event production between New York and Paris doing runway shows, brand dinners, and popups for two years. Before that, I was working at a vintage store and that's when I had the idea for Happy Isles. During the production job, I had the concept for Happy Isles while doing these kinds of events for brands. I thought: wait, I can just do this for myself and it can be permanent. I don't have to set up and break down. At that point, there was nothing like Happy Isles, so it felt like an important thing to do, and I felt like I could do it."
Can you pinpoint your love for fashion to a specific time in your life?
"Probably from the very beginning. While watching old movies when I was younger, I was always taken with the glamour. Singing In The Rain is my favorite movie—just the costumes, and the '30s, '40s, '50s always felt like such a fantasy to me. In my neighborhood growing up, there was a really epic vintage store that I could walk to. My favorite activity in childhood was going and just dreaming about one day being big enough to wear a dress. Then it really grew in high school. I feel like when I was a teen, it was kind of this classic era of fashion in the mid 2000s The OC, Marissa Cooper, just that 2000 to 2007 period, which is literally when I was 10 years old to 17 years old. And I wasn't able to buy the clothes I wanted when I was a teen. I think Happy Isles is a product of that—it's my fantasy closet that I couldn't have when I was younger."
What was the process of opening your own business like?
"It was a lot of just blind faith in my concept at the time, because nothing like this existed. Vintage bridal didn't even fully exist in a fashion context. There were some sellers on Etsy selling wedding dresses from the 40s, but no one was doing white vintage in a bridal context. When I told people about what I was starting, everyone was like, "Is there an audience for that? Is there enough of an audience for what you're doing?" So it was just a lot of blindfold in my concept and knowing that there were plenty of women and brides out there that would die for vintage options while bridal shopping."
Where do you source the clothes and what do you look for?
"Things come from all over. Now that I've been doing it for 10 years, people come to us a lot more with pieces from their own closets. We have a lot of brides now, just in the year and a half, sourcing vintage for themselves. When their weddings are over, we literally get lookbooks from average brides with like thirty vintage bridal pieces that they bought to have as options that they didn't wear. So that's becoming more prevalent. Auctions, online, I have dealers strategically in different cities that send me pieces. I travel when I can. It's constant. I'm buying every day and it keeps me alive. I need new visual information or the world gets stale. That's the part of it that always brings me life: when something new comes in the store and I'm like, "I've never felt this love before." That kind of energy keeps me going and I know it does for everyone that works at the salons too."
Is there an era or a specific style that clients are constantly looking for?
"Very much so in '90s, 2000s is the most requested, but we do see a lot of girls coming for '50s and '60s. The '60s are my personal favorite decade, so I collect a lot of it and I think it's always a surprising choice for people when they come in looking for a '90s or 2000s look and then they're really gravitating towards a '60s, shifty, Prada vibe. Right now, a lot of people are looking for corsets. The snatched look is here to stay and we see that the most."
What is special about working in bridal versus any other type of fashion?
"Working in bridal is the most special placement in the retail environment. People are coming here to feel something. It's not a typical shopping experience, so the level of connection we get to make with our clients goes beyond just a normal retail experience. It's about human connection and that's what people are looking for when they're shopping for bridal. We get to actually have a soul connection with our clients for what is technically their most special look of their lives. You can't get that anywhere else except for in a bridal context."
How would you describe the aesthetic of the salon and what did you want to curate?
"I've kind of been thinking about this more: who is Happy Isles in the landscape of vintage now? I kind of feel like we're the Beverly Hills Hotel of vintage bridal. That's kind of the vibe. We're old school, we're colorful, we're feminine, but you're always going to find clean sleek pieces as well. So it's kind of classic, but with pizzaz."
Do you have a favorite piece in the store right now?
"This late '80s or early '90s Givenchy dress. It's not very bridal, but I'm just waiting for the right person to understand it.
Do you see yourself expanding beyond New York and LA?
"Yeah, we're working on it now. We have a third store in the works currently and have our eye on some other markets too. Expanding is definitely a part of the plan. It feels like everyone in any city that's not LA or New York is clambering for Happy Isles and we want to serve as many people as we can."
Why do you think vintage bridal is so popular right now?
"Vintage has just been popping off for years. I think thanks to archival on the red carpet and people being more inclined to go thrifting and shop on The RealReal,we're just more inclined as shoppers now to look for secondhand. So to find special unique pieces for your wedding seems like a direct tie into that. In such a trend based world that we're constantly seeing on our phones where we're being fed trend-based information and where everyone os wearing the same thing, going vintage is a way to just kind of subvert that and be your own gal, do your own thing, and know that you're wearing something that no one else is going to wear."
