Anyone familiar with Vivienne Westwood’s runway spectacles knows that closing the show with a bridal look is a signature. “There’s always the fashion show wedding dress,” the brand’s creative director Andreas Kronthaler tells Vogue. “I’ve done wedding dresses since we started with Vivienne. 35 years—every time a wedding dress. It’s always last minute. A few days before a show: ‘Okay, what is going to be the wedding dress? Oh, we have to do a wedding dress. Do we have to do a wedding dress?’ All these questions come in. Then, of course, we always do one.” On Thursday evening, however, Kronthaler faced a new design challenge: debuting an entirely bridal-focused runway show for the brand as the centerpiece of Barcelona Bridal Fashion Week’s lineup.

Photo: Courtesy of Vivienne Westwood

Over the past few years, bridal has become a major pillar of the Vivienne Westwood brand, with a dedicated atelier, 43 exclusive retailers across the globe, and countless to-be-weds vying to wear their signature corseted styles. “It’s just a very beautiful and important part of the life of our house,” says Kronthaler. “It became bigger and bigger and bigger, so we got more organized.” Reading between the lines, it seems that creating wedding looks appeals to the designer’s inner romantic. “You know we live in a really weird age, and marriage means a lot—to be together and share life,” he says. “It’s something you can control—you can control your time together and share the good and the bad things. And then, the bad things are half as bad and the good things are double.” (Kronthaler would know: he was married to the brand’s namesake, the late Vivienne Westwood, for nearly three decades.)