Bridalwear Manufacturer Moves West
Rani Totman’s phones were jammed with calls from reporters after her lilac-colored wedding dress was featured on the 2004 finale of hit television sitcom “Friends.”
The dress’s placement, however, was not the only important and romantic milestone for Totman and her bridalwear company, St. Pucchi Inc. In May, the designer moved her company from Dallas to Los Angeles. The reason for the transfer was just as romantic as the TV wedding was: Totman was joining her husband of five years, Steve Totman, an executive with Paramount Pictures.
Totman’s 16 design employees moved from Dallas to Los Angeles, where she maintains a 3,500-square-foot store at 1033 Westwood Blvd., near the University of California, Los Angeles campus. She also owns a factory in Bangkok, Thailand, where 180 garment workers produce her wedding dresses.
Totman designs gowns in a full spectrum of colors, such as butterscotch, lilac, French blue and sea-foam green. This palette leaves little room for traditional white, said Sam Russell, a Los Angeles–based wardrobe stylist.
“It’s her clear understanding that not all women look their best in white,” Russell said.
Russell often featured St. Pucchi while working as a wardrobe liaison for the North Hills, Calif.–based publication L.A. Brides. Sophia Bush, an actor on the TV series “One Tree Hill” wears a St. Pucchi gown in the Spring 2004 issue of the magazine.
Totman’s Indian family ran a lace factory in Thailand, and all the weddings she attended in her youth featured brides wearing colorful costumes. Indian women wore red, pink or gold saris to their wedding ceremonies and Thai women had intricate beadings and embroideries on their wedding costumes, she said.
When Totman started designing wedding gowns in Europe and Texas in the 1980s, she blended traditional bridalwear from Indian and Thai traditions with the modern gowns worn by brides in the West.
The company’s wedding dresses are sold at 180 stores in the United States and in Japan, Australia and Western Europe. Later this year, Totman plans to roll out formalwear line Rani Totman Evening, which made a soft launch at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in April. The designer said 95 percent of her business is bridalwear.
Price points for St. Pucchi dresses range from $1,400 to $12,000. Totman said she only uses 100 percent silk for her dresses as well as intricate embroidery and details such as Swarovski crystals.
The reason why Totman’s dress was featured on “Friends” had more to do with her imagination than traditional bridalwear conventions.
“I’m an English major. I didn’t have a design background, and that helps,” Totman said. “I don’t follow the rules. I blend everything.” —Andrew Asch
