Racy Bridal Trends Veil Little

Carolina Herrera stood calmly surveying her showroom last week before introducing a series of models, each resplendent in Chantilly lace, tiny silk-covered buttons coursing down their backs, their bodices sprayed with crystals and pearls.

Their gowns were but a sampling of Mrs. Herrera’s fall 2016 bridal collection, a lineup refreshed this season by a whisper of transparency.

"All the brides, they come to us and say, ‘I want a sexy dress,’ " Mrs. Herrera said. To which she ever so gently suggests, "Why don’t you do a seductive dress?"

Meaning, in this instance, something a bit naughty, but in the nicest possible way. Her bride, Mrs. Herrera maintained, "is looking for something soft and sheer, so that you can see the body, but in a calm way."

Transparency was an illusion she pulled off in gown after gown by adding multiple layers of pleats mirroring those on her spring runway, and tulle just sheer enough to offer a glimpse of skin underneath.

After all, she hastened to point out, "You have to leave a little something for the imagination."

Or not. In an unusually provocative bridal season, not every designer was as circumspect, the game being to hint at decadence while keeping one eye firmly trained on decorum. Vast swathes of the population, after all, don’t need reminding that marriage is a sacrament. The wedding has long been held, metaphorically at least, as a celebration of chastity, a virtue represented since Victorian times by a bride discreetly veiled in white.

Weddings, moreover, tend to be family affairs involving in-laws, pint-size flower girls and ring bearers, and doting grandparents all in rapt attendance. Not that you’d suspect it from the more fanciful offerings that were unveiled this week in showrooms, restaurants and industrial lofts all over town.

Though bridal designers like to insist that there are no trends in their collections, some obvious directions emerged. A few echoed the ready-to-wear runways: rows of fringe, deeply plunging V-necklines, thigh-high dresses and clusters of lace-embroidered lingerie looks, to name but a few.

But in more brazen instances, and there were many, bridal designers seemed to have taken their style cues directly from the red carpet, a runner awash this year in all manner of see-though confections.

Vogue magazine and the Metropolitan Museum of Art may have thought they had a lock on near nudity this year, when high-profile women made waves at the Met Gala in May sheathed in netting so fine as to show off acres of well-tended flesh. That look may have raised eyebrows, but it has done little to intimidate a brash handful of designers from taking similar liberties in their bridal collections.

"My bride has lost all her inhibitions," said Don O’Neill, the creative director of Theia, a line inspired this year by 1920s Chinese opium dens. He reinforced his point with a series of close-to-the body flame-red satin gowns, followed by the show stopper, a crystal-embellished tube of a dress conceived to cover up next to nothing at all.

Naeem Khan was nearly as bold, offering a curve-skimming gown poured over what looked like skin, but was in fact a slinky peach-tone lining. And Reem Acra introduced a strapless design, its lacy full skirt revealing a hint of the model’s legs.

But for sheer audacity few topped Vera Wang.

Ms. Wang, who over the years has made a fetish of "edginess," topped herself this season with a selection of dresses whipped up of ultrathin tulle that all but exposed the bride’s naked outlines.

Not everyone ventured as far. Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig of Marchesa made sure to acknowledge the transparency trend with layers of see-through netting wafting over slender lace dresses. But they clearly weren’t willing to cross propriety’s final frontier.

"We spent many, many hours trying out different linings," Ms. Craig confided just before the show last week. "And we made sure to test them for safety in front of a well-lighted window."

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