The Desert Wedding that Sparked a Collection
The nuptials of A.L.C.’s Alex Basch inspire a line of timeless dresses
Dylan Wolff fondly refers to his courtship of Alex Basch as the “ultimate slow play.” The pair first met in 2003 as freshmen at Calabasas High School and immediately hit it off, but it would be nearly a decade before romance took root. “We were really close friends and I always had a crush on her,” explains Wolff, “but I let it simmer for 10 years.”
It wasn’t until they both returned home to Los Angeles in 2010 after graduating from college—she from George Washington University and he from the University of Oregon—that their friendship evolved into something more. Despite a joint agreement to take the summer off with minimal responsibilities, Alex received a serendipitous call from Andrea Lieberman, the founder of the then-fledgling label A.L.C., offering Alex a job as her assistant.
“Alex had always planned to move to New York and do the fashion thing,” says Dylan. “When she got this opportunity in Los Angeles, it saved me!”
Five years later, on a vacation in Tulum, Mexico, Dylan closed the deal, proposing amid candlelight and flowers—with a GoPro camera set to capture the scene. “It was so beautiful and all I could focus on was the camera,” recalls Alex, laughing. “I totally ruined the whole proposal telling him he couldn’t record me.”
The couple decided on the Colony Palms Hotel in Palm Springs for their October nuptials, opting for a relaxed weekend getaway and exchanging vows in front of 135 close family and friends as the sun set over the San Jacinto Mountains.
Dylan donned a Saint Laurent tux, and Alex, now the branding director for A.L.C., wore a double-faced silk dress custom–designed by Lieberman.
“We called her from Tulum after we got engaged, and she was so excited to design the dress,” says Alex, who remembers Lieberman telling her, “You want to be you on your wedding day.” For Alex, a self–described jeans-and-T-shirt girl, that meant a simple gown that focused on fabric and fit, including a beautiful low-back detail.
The bride was just as adamant that her bridesmaids feel like themselves, a design task to which Lieberman enthusiastically lent her hand. “I don’t know if she knew what she was getting herself into, but she loves dressing people and dressing people for important events,” recalls Alex. “We looked at styles that we really loved, sketched them, and in some cases took A.L.C. favorites and allocated those.”
The personalized assortment of dresses inspired A.L.C.’s first-ever bridal collection of effortlessly elegant frocks, aptly called The Dress, which launched in April.
“The collection truly came out of the wedding,” says Alex. “The Dress stemmed from this idea of dressing women for all these special moments in their lives.”
PLANNER COJ Events FLORIST Mary Cass, Jensen’s Florist ENTERTAINMENT Dart Collective VIDEOGRAPHER Shark Pig, Wade Koch DRESS A.L.C. SUIT Saint Laurent CAKE Sweet Lady Jane HAIR Angelo Tsimourtos at Andy LeCompte Salon MAKEUP Noseph Trinh
Photography by SARAH FALUGO.
Written by GILLIAN KOENIG.
