“Bridgerton” Fans Say, ‘Yes’ To The Regency-Style Dresses On Queenly

In Regency-era London, the ladies of the ton – society ladies – were fitted in empire waist gowns. “Bridgerton’s” diamond, Daphne’s, beautiful, restrained elegance earned her the decree of Queen Charlotte of “flawless,” while the unfortunately gauche Featherington daughters only received her scorn.

Daphne’s younger sisters, Eloise and Francesca, made their own fashion statement with chiffon ruffled collar dresses called chemisettes, while poor Penelopy Featherington cut a chubby figure in any dress she wore.

Queenly wanted to give a taste of “Bridgerton” to all its fans and created a Fever Ball partnership with Netflix
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, sourcing regency-style dresses from fans. These types of dresses are usually only worn once, so it was important to Queenly to promote circularity and ensure future “Bridgerton” Experience attendees have access to these types of dresses. Queenly created a category page for attendees for reference. There’s also The Queen’s Ball: A “Bridgerton” Experience page. All attendees are given 15% discount codes to buy regency dresses on Queenly and resell them there after the event.

“You’re invited to a once-in-a-lifetime night out in a Regency-esque world,” Queenly said on its dedicated Queen’s Ball page. “Join us at a magnificent ball for a unique immersive party with drinks, music, dancing, and flourishing romance. Just as the Duke and Daphne found love in season 1, watch as a love story unfolds before your eyes at The Queen’s Ball.”

Prospective guests were invited to step back in time and learn new regency dance steps while interacting with actors dressed in exquisite period costumes. “The Queen herself is hosting this grand ball so be on the watch because she will be looking for her Diamond of the Evening,” Queenly said. “Get ready to party like it’s 1813!”

The IRL event promises live music and signature cocktails like the Bridgerton-inspired Whistledown & Dirty and Lady Bridgerton.

The immersive experience features set recreations and photo opps, chances to interact with actors dressed in exquisite period costumes, to learn group ballroom dances, and present yourself to the Queen – all in a magical Regency-era ballroom setting.

There’s also live theatrical and acrobatic performances and a love story told through dance as beautiful performers move through the enchanting ballroom.

“I always say that I learn a lot from my employees,” said Trisha Bantingue, cofounder and CEO of Queenly. “I have a lot of younger Gen Z employees. Early last year I heard about the “Bridgerton” show and I thought it was such a cool thing and a good thing for Queenly because we’re a formalwear marketplace.”

In March 2023, Queenly expanded into Canada, its first international expansion, after seeing strong demand/inbound requests from Canadian consumers on social media.

Queenly saw 35-times customer growth and 3-times year-over-year growth in gross merchandise value (GMV) since 2020.

To date, Queenly has acquired over 700,000 downloads across Apple’s App Store and Google Play and has signed on with over 40 partners, including Mac Duggal, Terani, Portia & Scarlett, and more.

Bantingue heard about a “Bridgerton” experience and attended it.

“I wanted to do some on the ground market research,” she said. “I asked people, ‘Where did you get your dress? I love the color.’ Nine out of 10 of them said they got their dresses on Amazon
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. It was disappointing because I could tell they were a bit more on the lower end of quality – fast fashion, like Shein-type dresses.

“I asked them ‘Do you know any other marketplaces or any other sites where you could find gowns.’ They said, ‘No, it was very hard to find Regency-style dresses.’ I had a lightbulb go off in my head,” said Bantingue. “I thought this would be a good idea to let ‘Bridgerton’ fans know that there are a lot more options for dresses and they don’t have to be expensive.

“It can be more sustainable,” Bantingue said. “I started reaching out to ‘Bridgerton’ and I got passed off to the right person for partnerships, finally. Big corporations are like really slow. We able to sign the contract last month and launched this live.”

“A lot of Regency-style dresses are coming out of costume sources,” Bantingue said. “The gusts who go full out with their character’s Regency-style outfits had to source them. All of these attendees are purchasing dresses to wear only to this event. They won’t have anywhere to wear the dresses after. We started a campaign with ‘Bridgerton’ and Fever to make sure that they understand that they can make this more sustainable by reselling on the platform after.”

The average price of a gown on Queenly is about $200. The median is pulled up by “really expensive dresses sold on Queenly,” Bantingue said. “I believe that 15% of our sales are over $1,000. There are couture $2,500 dresses with beading or bridal dresses.”

Pinks and pastels have been very popular colors for dresses. “It’s a multi-trend thing because we have Barbie,” Bantingue said. “Last year red was the most popular. This year it’s a lot of light pinks, light yellows, then we’re starting to get into the Barbie core thing with fuchsia. I see our brand catering to a lot of ongoing trends and what the Gen Z audience is going after. We can cast ourselves more as a social commerce platform rather than a B2C site. We want to stay very very close to our customer and what they like, and what they enjoy at the moment.”

While Barbie has been criticized for not being a feminist role model for young girls, Bantingue said there’s hope for the next generation of doll owners. “There’s some Barbies they came up with such as the first Filipino doll, who is a doctor. I’m hoping that with our platform on Queenly that offers a wider variety of different dresses, it promotes [diversity and inclusion]. We started in 2019 from my own personal experiences. I was actually an emancipated youth at age 17, I realized that there weren’t a lot of resources for me.

“My financial aid for college was maxed out to the point where every financial counselor told me to just drop out and go to community college,” Bantingue said. “I did a lot of research and found out that pageant organizations were one of the bigger scholarship givers to women in this country. Never in a million years did I imagine myself competing in a pageant. I only knew about it from ‘Miss Congeniality,’ Sandra Bullock. I felt like I need to go to school, I need to get this degree. I ended up doing pageants for about eight years and it was the key for me in paying my tuition.

“That’s when I started to see how difficult it is to find a dress and what happens to the dress post-event,” Bantingue said. “I researched the prom industry, the wedding industry, everything related to formalwear. There really wasn’t a satisfactory platform that serviced that vertical. I decided to create this specifically for that vertical for the girls and the women, who deserved better. The goal was to democratize formal wear.”