Unbox the Dress moves into larger space in Winston-Salem, already looking for more as it prepares to add employees (PHOTOS)

For decades, married women have been saving their wedding dresses in boxes, kept in the back of the closet or in the attic. It stays there, often until the former bride passes away and her family must decide – donate or sell?

That’s what Lorraine Stewart had to do when her mother passed away, and Stewart discovered not only her mother’s wedding dress but also her sisters’ and her own.

“You move it around from house to house, thinking your daughter might wear it someday,” Stewart said. “In truth, your daughter’s not going to wear your dress from the 80s.”

Stewart and her daughter, Grace Lightner, had a lightbulb moment. What if they could use the fabric from the vintage dresses to make a robe for a bride to wear while she gets ready on her wedding day? That way, the vintage dress can be used once again while giving the new bride a sentimental piece of history.

In 2017, Lightner and Stewart founded Unbox the Dress, the first-of-its-kind wedding dress redesign and repurpose company.

With the help of a $50,000 NC IDEA seed grant, the company moved from Northeast Ohio to Winston-Salem in October 2020, in order to be in a historic garment region. Since then, Unbox the Dress has grown rapidly, expanding from two to 25 employees and recently upgrading from a 5,000-square-foot production studio in the Nash-Bolich building in downtown Winston-Salem to an 11,000-square-foot space off North Point Boulevard.

Unbox the Dress is already discussing expanding in its current location, which it officially moved to in July, with an additional 2,500 square feet at the front of the building. This expansion could happen as early as January, Stewart said.

Lightner said the company is currently – and urgently – hiring, with plans to add five full-time sewers by the end of 2022.

Company Profile

Selling nationally through e-commerce, Unbox the Dress has served over 5,000 clients, according to Lightner. At any given time, there are approximately 400 dresses moving through the company’s production process. Stewart added that orders currently being placed are racking up into the 6,000s.

“There’s 63 million women in America that have at least one family wedding dress in their closet,” Stewart said. “There’s 2.5 million gowned-weddings a year and, post-Covid, this year is a big wedding year.”

First-of-its-kind service innovates products, processes

Unbox the Dress currently offers over 50 proprietary products, including garments, accessories, home décor and keepsakes. In September, Unbox the Dress launched its Luxe collection, featuring designs and products that are more time-intensive and require more handiwork.

And Unbox the Dress not only services vintage wedding dresses, but has moved into targeting the modern, sustainable brides who want to upcycle their own wedding dresses. Lightner said approximately 60% to 65% of their business is still vintage dresses.

Unbox the Dress also recently launched a program called “Save to Transform.” After their wedding, brides can ship their dress – as is – to the company, who will clean, repair and store the dress as the brides accumulate points to apply to future redesigns.

Customers begin on Unbox the Dress’s website, where they can take a quiz to get customized recommendations or can select their desired product. Then, brides send the dress to the company where it will be photographed for documentation.

A member of Unbox the Dress’s customer care team conducts a live design consultation before moving into production. Unbox the Dress also saves extra fabric because customers often want to add more products once they realize how much can be made from one dress, Lightner said. With the high demand Unbox the Dress is experiencing, quoted delivery time is between 10 to 12 weeks.

“It’s sort of mass customization,” Lightner said, “so it feels very personal to the client, but we translate all of that input into easy-to-follow design input for the production team.”

Innovation abounds throughout Unbox the Dress’s process, from shipping to design to marketing.

Designed to make shipping easier, the company invested in 500 custom-designed “dress boxes” that are reusable and timesaving.

During the design consultation, the customer care team uses the company’s proprietary worksheets that show the different options and possible customizations for products. When done, the worksheet gets passed along to the production team, which will also consult Unbox the Dress’s specific design manual for the deconstruction and reconstruction of its products. Unbox the Dress owns the intellectual property in its design manual.

Unbox the Dress has 16 industrial sewing machines, as well as industrial sergers and an embroidery machine, in its new facility.

As an online platform, Unbox the Dress has found success in social media marketing that leads to increased sales and website traffic, Stewart noted. The company’s TikTok account has millions of views, 12.8 thousand followers and 627.7 thousand likes. Its Instagram and Facebook accounts have over 7,300 followers and over 6,400 followers, respectively.

Unbox the Dress weaves itself into fabric of local garment industry with partnerships

Unbox the Dress uses vendors and partners with companies in the state, such as Trotters Sewing Company in Asheboro, Bill’s Sewing Machine Company in Hildebran and Foust Textiles in Kings Mountain.

The company has developed relationships with local universities, like the Wilson College of Textiles at North Carolina State University and UNC School of the Arts, for recruitment. Unbox the Dress has also employed marketing and branding interns from both High Point University and Wake Forest University, Lightner said.

“[My costuming degree] has very much helped,” said Kaitlin Smith, Unbox the Dress’ production supervisor who worked as a costume technician at UNCSA for three years. “I’m used to working on tight deadlines and pushing things out fast but having a high quality.”

Outside the Triad, Unbox the Dress works with other fashion brands and clothing retailers, as it’s a way for those companies to offer sustainability without cannibalizing their own sales, Lightner said.

For example, the company has a revenue share partnership with retailer Adrianna Papell, which promotes Unbox the Dress’ services. Lightner added that the company is discussing other ways to integrate and is talking with other retailers and brands.

In addition to the $50,000 NC IDEA grant, Unbox the Dress received funding from Connetic Ventures from Kentucky and completed a pre-seed funding round earlier this year that was led by First Launch Capital Fund in Greensboro. Lightner declined to disclose the amount of funding in the most recent round but said she anticipates needing additional funds.

Crunchbase reports that the company has raised $1.1 million to date and filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show fundings for $250,000 in November 2020 and $135,000 in June 2020.

Unbox the Dress also graduated from Winston Starts after it moved to the Triad.

Mother-daughter duo focuses on being a women-centric company

A mother-daughter duo, Stewart and Lightner said they enjoy working together and have been able to each other’s complementary strengths.

Lightner said she intends to keep Unbox the Dress in Winston-Salem, noting that the move here has paid off. Her and Stewart are also determined to keep the company culture women centered, motivated by the fact that very little venture capital goes to women-led companies.

Eventually, Lightner wants Unbox the Dress to be a household name and hopes that the company can expand to transforming garments beyond wedding gowns.

“There’s so much energy and venture capital in the sustainability space, but no one’s thinking about how to scale up this opportunity for the consumer to take part in the closed loop economy and take garments they love and no longer wear and, instead of donating or trashing them, transforming it into something they do want,” Lightner said. “Everybody has a piece of clothing they are attached to. We can apply all of our processes, our tech, our product designs, our quality check to any garment.”