Maria Modes
Luxury Bridal Boutique
HOW IT STARTED
Emma Kendrick, the owner of Chesire-based bridal store Maria modes, knew she wasn’t keeping up with her competitors and felt that other bridal stores had a much stronger brand message. Maria Modes is situated in a beautiful building in Macclesfield comprising of three floors which houses their bridal wear, bridesmaids, bridal sale and also their menswear brand. The store is absolutely beautiful and customers were often pleasantly surprised when they visited. Emma knew they had the offering and service right in person, but there was a disconnect as to the impression they were making online.
Emma wanted to raise the profile of Maria Modes so that it became the go-to bridal shop in Cheshire. She wanted to look more premium and high end, inline with their store, so that they could attract those customers who were looking for that experience and position themselves higher in the marketplace.
WHAT WE DID
Everything about Maria Modes is just so special. From the minute you see the shop and walk through the door you know you’re in for an unforgettable experience. We turned Maria Modes into a destination - so there was a natural call to action... come and visit us! We brought in the line “Welcome to Wonderful” to the copy and incorporated an elegant line illustration of the building into the brand identity.
The rest of the visual identity is headed up with a beautiful luxury looking logo. Fonts for the logo were selected and crafted to give more of a unique identity than they had previously. We fused modern with traditional to reflect the whole range of bridal wear on offer. A gorgeous soft and romantic colour palette was brought together to get across the feel we wanted to create for the brand - luxury, special, trustworthy, approachable.
Maria Mode’s “sale rail” is in fact an entire floor of stunning gowns. Although our main aim was to elevate the brand to look more luxury and premium, the sale items are priced from £100 so it was important for the whole brand to still feel approachable to customers with all budgets. We created a sub brand for this and named it “Ready to Wear”.
AND THE RESULTS...
Going through the branding process helped Emma solidify the vision she had for her brand and how she wanted to move the business forwards. Things are now much more consistent between the online and offline identity and everything has a more premium luxury feel.
Emma had been spending lots of time trying to create graphics that looked good in Canva. Things are much quicker and easier for her now as she has a full set of graphics and templates she can quickly add her content to.
Printed material in the store was also replaced to make sure the brand was present at every touch point. Subtly textured papers and quality print ensured they reflected the brand.
WHAT DOES EMMA SAY?
I always wanted to look at the branding. There are lots of shops you look at online that look really slick and I think they must have a shop like ours but they actually don’t. We’re the other way round. We wanted that amazing look and feel externally. We didn’t just want customers being happily surprised.
I now feel much more proud as everything looks so neat and on point.
Working with Alison is an investment. But it’s definitely worth it - especially now I’ve seen the process in action and seen what I get at the end of it. It’s really helped me solidify where I want to take the business. It’s a good process to do as well as getting the end result and it’s so organised form end to end.
Images used in moodboard and Instagram styling concepts sourced from Pinterest
and are not owned by Alison Boote Brand Studio or clients.
