“Make me look like a disco ball.” For most designers this isn’t a common request, but for Madison Chamberlain, so-called disco brides, and anyone looking to splash extra color, sparkle or glam into their wedding day, are a mainstay of her business.
Ms. Chamberlain, 29, started her bridal brand in 2022. “I’ve always been what you would call an occasion-wear designer,” she said. In college, at what was then known as Philadelphia University, she studied fashion design and made “jacquard coats decked out in embellishments and trimmed with orange fur,” she said. “Things that were just extreme.”
In 2019, Ms. Chamberlain left a design assistant job at Free People, where she had worked on party dresses. She was feeling burned out from corporate fashion and dreamed of someday starting her own fashion line, one of “joyful things,” made in a size-inclusive, low-waste way.
For about two years she worked for a wedding-invitation studio, painted pet portraits, did freelance design work and taught children’s art and sewing classes. Then, in 2021, a friend of a friend asked Ms. Chamberlain to make a dress for her wedding in New Orleans. She created a custom gown embellished with shimmering paillettes, and wound up being invited to the wedding. The experience inspired her to shift her focus to nontraditional bridal design.
In August 2022, Ms. Chamberlain posted a TikTok video of her first veil, a rainbow sequin piece. It got more than two million views and sparked a flurry of inquiries. After that, she was able to make the brand her full-time job, running her business out of a studio in Philadelphia.
