Claire Dratch

I was a little reluctant to shop here since it received such negative reviews here on Yelp. But, I was looking for a mother of the bride dress and decided to give it a try since I liked its convenient location, and was planning on going to several other stores after going to Claire Dratch.

I had a fabulous shopping experience here. It was relaxed and friendly and I loved my consultant Anick. She didn't waste my time showing me dresses that didn't work, and she has a great eye for what looks good. I had no problem finding the perfect dress and was torn between two gorgeous dresses. The selection is excellent, you can get almost any type of material or color, or length.

The store reminded me of the type of store my grandmother patronized, but not in an old-fashioned way, but in a European, Old World way. You get individualized attention, excellent service, and top-notch quality. I didn't find it to be "old lady" at all. The salespeople were all very professional and nice and while shopping there, I saw another customer getting her mother of the bride gown final fitting. She looked fabulous! I can't speak much to the bridal shopping experience here (although I saw several brides getting final fittings and they looked great) but for a mother of the bride or groom or any formal wear, I'd highly recommend Claire Dratch.

It was a truly elegant Washington institution:
"With the passing of our namesake, and the completion of seventy years in business, it is time to retire and close our doors. We will forever be grateful to generations of style-minded clientele from metropolitan Washington and around the world who have graced this establishment with their patronage, to an eminently talented and loyal staff, and to an industry of creative genius."

Do not waste your time going here for a bridal gown, unless you enjoy being on the receiving in of exceptionally bad customer service. The lady downstairs was a miserable person who immediately told me that she only thought I would look decent in one of their dresses and quickly followed up by asking how much weight I intended to lose before my wedding. (Note: the dress was hideous.)

The lady upstairs in the bridal area seemed marginally nicer, but she ignored us for 15 minutes while helping two girls look at hideous bridesmaids dresses. During this time, the downstairs lady was talking loudly about how many inches I would lose if I dropped 30 pounds. At this point, I literally could not take more harassment by the downstairs lady and left. Save yourself the trip to Bethesda -- don't go to Claire Dratch.

My sister is getting married in June, and being a faithful maid of honor, I set up appointments with a few bridal shops in the area to find the wedding dress. My sister had been shopping a few times before and was having trouble deciding what style of dress she wanted.

My mom bought her dress from Claire Dratch in the 1970s so she suggested we go there. Knowing nothing about the store except what my mother remembered from the 70s, and seeing no reviews on Yelp, we were a bit uncertain what we would find. We were pleasantly surprised!

First of all, the store is humongous as far as bridal shops go. The first floor has casual and special events clothing---lots of choices for mother of the bride sorts of dresses, for example. The second floor is entirely bridal. The saleswoman, Inna, who helped us, was incredible. She would suggest a dress, help my sister try it on, comment on it, and then suggest another dress. And boy, did she have good taste. Things that we might not have glanced twice at on the hanger came alive when my sister tried them on, and it was clear that Inna knew they would. She is very good at her job! :)

They had dresses you could order as well as sample dresses you could buy right there. They were all so lovely, but they carried a wide variety of styles including very traditional and more modern dresses. Inna devoted two hours to us as my sister tried on dresses and struggled to decide which ones she liked best. Inna was very patient with us and we appreciated that.

It was obvious that Claire Dratch knows what they are doing. They have been in business for over 60 years. They have all the dress hems lined with plastic to help preserve the dresses. The prices were lower than what we anticipated. They ranged from $1000-2000 or so, but we had expected them to be much higher.

The ladies at Claire Dratch were very accomodating. We had to change our appointment time and they had no problem with that. They put a dress on hold for my sister for 4 days. And she was able to call them and order it over the phone.

I'm not sure how the alterations process at Claire Dratch goes, so I can't rate them on that. Also, there is parking behind the store but it's metered and costs $0.75 an hour.

Definitely some cognitive dissonance in the demographic department here, which is reflected in the largely negative reviews.

I had a superb experience here. Knew what I wanted but not where to find it, walked in and was helped by a marvellously cosmopolitan and helpful assistant, paid and left.

Very very interesting place. Been in business for 67 years, been in this location for over 40, definitely a relic of a bygone age, but with Bethesda and its NORC ( naturally occuring retirement community) I'm sure it wil ldo well for years to come.

Great service, phenomenal space, and a unique shopping experience.

GO THERE !

I have had the most horrible experiences in my wedding dress search. With pushy salespeople or people that just ignored me.

At Claire Dratch, I was skeptical when I walked in because it seemed like one of those old school department stores I had seen on the BBC.

I came in 20 minutes early for my appointment fully ready to read magazines for a bit before they were ready. Inessa was ready right away. She looked me over and said I know what will look good on you. And she did!!!!

I had told her that I had wanted a lace dress and she brought out dress after dress after dress that was beautiful and fit my aesthetic eventhough I wasn't able to articulate exactly what I wanted. In the dressing room, she was very accomodating! She made some on the spot changes to make me better envision my dress (some extra material here, changing the dress there). I felt like I had my mom in the room with me in the way she took care of me.

She was also very honest with me about what looked good and what didn't. I appreciated it because she had excellent taste!

I ended up getting one of the most expensive dresses I looked at and it was only $2000. I could have spent less than $1000 and still walked out with a beutiful gown. At no point did I feel like she was bringing out expensive gown just to make a sale.

All the gowns I looked at were brand name (unlike dresses that are exclusives of an in-store designer... very sketchy) and VERY well taken care of!

I got my dress from here happily. I will definitely be back for my party dress and for my bridesmaids' dresses.....

If I could give this store 0 stars, I would. Shopped a lot here 10 years ago, before leaving the area and it was a lovely, elegant store. Flash forward to a trip back to shop for a mother of the bride dress. Despite an appointment, no staff was in the store except an older gentleman. The store reeked of mold and decay. The floors were filthy with boxes scattered about and only 1/2 the lights on. Not the store I'd go to and spend well over 500.00 for anything.

I had the worst experience at this bridal shop. I was recommended by a friend to go, and to see Ina because she was the best. I was so excited to go because my previous experience at Davids bridal wasn't all that great.

The ladies downstairs were so nice, and told us our budget would be fine when making the appointment. Apparently they should have warned Ina. Right from the beginning of my appointment I could see the disappointment on her face as i told her my budget. Not only was my budget hard to work with, but my size D bra was also creating conflict for Ina. She continued to insult me and comment on my weight throughout the entire appointment.

I had a baby 5 months ago and have been losing the baby weight slowly. Apparently my body type and budget were stressing Ina out, because she just couldn't seem to find anything that would work. Either the dress that i could afford was discontinued, not in my size, or just wouldn't look right on "My full body type". I'm a size 8! Is that really that bad?

I can appreciate someone giving you an honest opinion, but the blunt rude manor in which she spoke to me was devastating. I am not the skinniest girl, but i am not as fat as Ina was making me feel that day. My friends and I were shocked that she had the nerve to comment about my weight, bra size, and budget with such disgust. Unless you are a size two and can afford an expensive dress, i would not recommend this bridal boutique to anyone.

Typically I would not be one to write a review, but i wanted to take the time to mention how disappointed i was. Thanks to Ina, i don't know if I will ever find the right dress.

The service at this store was awful! And we had an appointment!

We booked an appointment as a group to try on bridesmaids' dresses. The employees downstairs completely ignored us and when we made it upstairs, the woman with whom we had the appointment told us that her earlier appointment was running late and pointed us in the direction of tea length dresses.

After that, we were on our own. We scoured the racks for any dress that looked like it might come in the fabric the bride had picked without any assistance, divided up into dressing rooms, tried them all on, and sat around trying to figure out what the dresses would actually look like if they were in our sizes. After a half hour, the woman with whom we had made the appointment finally came to check on us but when we asked her if she could measure us she snipped, "I'm not going to size you if you're just going to buy the dresses on the internet." I'm not sure where that outburst came from, since we had exchanged maybe ten words in the entire time that we were there, but that's a wonderful idea.

I hope the indecisive bride-to-be that she was helping instead of us ended up with a dress that's at least $1500 more than she was planning because that employee's rudeness just lost her the commission off seven bridesmaids' dresses.

I'm trying to figure out how to give this place zero stars, but I don't think that's an option. Dear Reader, know that this is intended as a zero star review and look elsewhere for your dresses.

Old fashioned dress store with dusty atmosphere, horrible clothes and nasty salespeople. They treated me like a problem. I think not.