Brides are saying “Yes” to a fashion entrepreneur’s hand-me-down wedding dress.
Spanx founder Sara Blakely is loaning out her old strapless, lace Saks Fifth Avenue gown to grateful brides-to-be.
And after a year of social distancing, the businesswoman’s bigheartedness is bonding women — 5 ladies and counting — together in a touching way.
“Wearing Sara Blakely’s wedding dress was literally my dream come true,” Manhattan-based Renata Franco, 24, told The Post.
She was one of the many hopefuls who answered Blakely’s March 2020 Instagram call-out, offering her matrimonial garb to women whose weddings were wrecked by the pandemic.
Roughly 70 percent of engaged couples rescheduled or called off their weddings due to COVID-19 last year, according to Wedding Report, an industry research site.
“My heart is breaking for all the brides out [there] having to cancel and postpone their special day,” Blakely, 50, wrote on the social-media platform.
“So I thought why not offer my dress to more amazing women,” the undergarment mogul added, prompting candidates to raise their hands in her Instagram comments.
Franco, now a newlywed New Yorker originally from São Paulo, Brazil, immediately responded: “I would love to wear your dress.” A Spanx rep then reached out over direct message to ask more questions about her relationship and how COVID-19 messed up their wedding plans.
She was forced to postpone her fairytale nuptials with fiancé Fabio Meza, 30, when the pandemic hit the city last spring.
And while she hadn’t purchased any wedding regalia ahead of the shutdown, her plans to tie the knot in front of her family — who had been approved for travel visas to the US from São Paulo — were canceled.
But her luck changed once the benevolent girl-boss placed her size 4 frock on the borrowing block.
The dress Blakely is loaning out, however, was previously gifted to two other brides-in-need before quarantine: her good friend Julie Gruber, then musician Nataly Dawn, who she met while hiking.
Now, Blakely has made a practice of sharing her gown. The Spanx maven and her team ship the dress to each bride-to-be, free of charge, along with a gift bag full of her brand’s signature shapewear goodies. After the wedding, the brides don’t even have to pay to have the gown cleaned.
Blakely — worth an estimated $610 million, according to Forbes — covers the laundering costs, as well as the return shipping fees.
Read more about this amazing story here!
(Photo courtesy of Thalles Gomes)
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