Claire Dratch

I agree with the other reviewers – I wish there was a «no star» option for this store.
I bought my FIRST wedding dress here. First, the place is a filthy dump. That should have been the first sign that I should have gone elsewhere. Then, aside from the terrible service and attitude of the employees, I was bullied into buying a dress one-​to-​two sizes too big for me («I am a professional, these dresses come small. You cannot fit in your usual dress size. I suggest you get this size»). I was also charged extra for all the alterations that were required to get the dress to even remotely fit me. By the time my last dress fitting came around, the dress was such a mess, and the proportions were so wrong from being forced to buy a dress that was way too large to begin with, that we all agreed I could not wear it. I was told the dress would never look good to me, or on me, «because you are not a model.» I may not be a model, but I am a petite and fit woman who could wear any dress that fit right. I finally left my dress at the store had to hold back tears as I panicked about what I would wear to my wedding 15 days away. I ended up going to Hitched in Georgetown, where they professionally measured me and got me a wedding dress and provided professional fittings, all in ten days.
This place is terrible. I was treated with such disrespect in front of my family and friends, you can’t imagine. And although I was so unhappy that I literally left a wedding dress I had paid for (and then some) in a pile on the floor, two weeks before my wedding, they did not care one bit. With all the other alternative bridal shops out there, I would definitely stay away.

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.

Dreary, cluttered, dated. And rude. The dresses I was shown as a mother-​of-​the-​bride were just plain ugly. I was told that prints were «dated» and «not classic» and that sleeves were «matronly.» Now I am a size 6 but I suspect they sell many larger dresses and sleeves are generally a nice thing to have for an afternoon wedding in May. I do not get this place at all – it is a throwback to another era, with old-​fashioned dresses and a complete absence of customer service.

Biggest mistake of my wedding was ordering my dress from here! Terrible in EVERY way! Staff is the rudest I have ever encountered in my LIFE!

The only benefit I experienced at this place was its convenient location.
Admittedly, I didn’t have an appointment. It was my first time being a bridesmaid and it never occurred to me that I would need one, since I knew what dress I needed to look at and would only need help finding it. I walked in to the lower level, which is more like a regular clothing shop, and a young sales girl greeted me, but looked confused as to my presence. As if customers don’t belong in stores. She pointed me upstairs towards the bridal area.
The bridal salon is sizable, and there was a bride with her mother being helped already. Other than that, I was the only other person in the whole store. A brusque older lady acted like not having an appointment was the end of the world and that it was a terrible inconvenience to help me. I even offered to find the dress myself on the bridesmaid racks since all I needed was to try it on for looks, to which she also scoffed at.
They cut out the designer tags from the sample dresses so you have to hope that what you came in for is what you are actually getting, and they also won’t let you take pictures of yourself to compare or share with the other members of the wedding party. I did anyway because the «help» was so snotty.
I didn’t buy my dress here, I was able to call a bridal salon in Rhode Island (where all the other girls were located) give them my measurements and had the dress ordered from there. I never recommend this shop.
Make an evening appointment at David’s Bridal instead. They are slow in the evenings, you know what designers you are selecting from, and let you take pictures.

By far the most bizarre bridal shopping experience I’ve had so far. The store is huge, kind of dusty and permeated by a very distinct old lady closet smell. The bridal consultant was nice enough, she listened to what I was telling her and brought out a few dresses that were close, but not quite what I was looking for. Though she kept saying she didn’t work on commission and wasn’t there to pressure me into buying anything which was a little weird as she started with this rant right when we met. I tried on the first one for the hell of it – that was the easy part. Unfortunately getting it off was another story. When she went to undo the zipper it broke and I was stuck in the dress for 20 minutes while two Russian seamstresses literally cut me out of the thing with scissors. Needless to say, I did not end up getting my dress here. This place could really use a remodel.

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 !

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

No thanks. This is another strange shop — a very outdated department store for older ladies, with a bridal shop upstairs. Everything was very dark and small.
I called at lunch on a Monday bc I read they carried the dress I was interested in, and she said I could come in that afternoon no problem. When I got there I was quickly informed that they have the designers bridesmaid collection, thats what they thought I meant. Nope, I had provided a specific style number so there was no mistaking what I meant on the phone.
I looked at the bridal selection anyway, but was quickly turned off by the consultant. She seems a little bitter and down for working in bridal. She kept saying that they stopped carrying my designer because they want to stand out and others in the area carry that designer so it wasn’t special anymore. Not really inspirational to a bride-​to-​be.

Upon walking in this bridal salon, I was immediately skeptical. The store is rather old and outdated. Also, I had to walk all the way to the back to find a salesperson to help out and was wondering, where are all the wedding gowns. As soon as I found someone, I was greeted by a «friendly» salesperson. Initially, she was nice, but upon arriving to their small, dark bridal area, I realized that Claire Dratch was not the place where I would purchase my dress even if they had what I wanted.
I am profoundly disappointed in the level of service and small selection of dresses. This is even after I called and asked if they carried a specific dress and a specific style and was assured that Claire Dratch did. The saleslady did not listen to me when I described what I was looking for thus increasing my frustration given that the salon did not have what I was looking for.
Despite this frustration, the saleslady dug herself and Claire Dratch deeper in the whole with me. After looking at around for a couple of minutes to see their options, I was told that their «clientele is more… well you know… conservative.» I immediately question the intent behind her comment. Moreover, when asked what the price point for Lazaro dresses was, she advised me that the dresses were on the high end. I asked her to be a bit more specific and not to base her responses off of stereotypes after all I had just left the Vera Wang boutique in Chevy Chase. Once I informed her of this, her tone immediately changed and she revised her response to be that of mid-​range. Adding to this, there were a couple of low-​end Lazaro dresses in the boutique. I didn’t go to the boutique because I thought it was cheap, rather I am looking for a particular style and I’m not married to any one designer.
I would say — stay far away. Do not waste your time. Unfortunately, I wasted my time and my family’s time who had driven up from Virginia to go dress shopping with me. There are far better boutiques in Maryland.

I expected a bit more from a place which has been around for so long. The staff was nice and helpful –and refreshingly honest, but I didn’t love the collection and was a bit annoyed that they wouldn’t share with me the names of the dresses I had tried on.

I was the maid of honor for a wedding, and the bridal party came here because it was the closest boutique that sold the full line of Watters gowns. The bride ended up getting a beautiful sample gown at a great price ($ 1200), and we were able to buy our bridesmaids dresses at a discount. The salespeople were nice enough, although they were pretty no-​nonsense about things. After that, though, things went downhill.
I personally tried on a size 10 sample, which was too big for me. They took my measurements and ordered my dress, which I figured was pretty standard operating procedure. Then I got the dress back, and it was a size 12. Despite the fact that 10 had been too big for me. The 12 didn’t fit at all, it was falling off my body.. . the bust of the dress basically fell to my waist. When I came back in they insisted they hadn’t made a mistake, that they were only going by my measurements, which is ridiculous. My weight/​size hadn’t changed at all between getting measured and getting the dress, by the way. So they charged me to have the dress altered.
I wish I had gone somewhere else for the alterations.. . throughout the whole process they seemed like they just wanted to do the least amount of work possible, and rushed me through the whole thing. And even though they initially said that I could pick up the dress a week after being fitted, after being fitted it changed to three weeks.
They tried to get one of the other bridesmaids to buy a bigger size too, and thank God she insisted on the size she knew would fit her, because it came back and fit her perfectly. No alterations necessary.
The bride also had an issue with them. While trying on the gown, they had quoted us a price for altering her wedding gown. None of us can remember what it was, but we remember that it sounded reasonable. When the bride called to ask about the price again, because she forgot, the saleswoman we had been working with asked «what did I tell you last time?» When the bride said she didn’t remember, the saleswoman said «oh, well then, it’s $ 650.»
That’s more than half the cost of the actual dress. If it had been that outrageous, we would have remembered. The bride took her alterations elsewhere.
Overall, while the salespeople can be nice when they’re about to make a sale, otherwise they can be curt and a little bit shady. I would not recommend this boutique to anyone else, and none of the bridesmaids in the party will be coming back for our respective weddings.

As a bride myself, to be married this year, I’ve been shopping all over the place. Let’s begin with the phone call to make an appointment. I call, they put me on hold, eventually tell me they can squeeze me in at 3pm on a weekday because they are booked. I arrive and the place is actually 3 floors with bridal being on the 3^rd floor.
Basically this place is a longstanding business (62 years) that specializes in designer dresses on the ground floor, god knows whats below and bridal on the top floor. Designer means, several seasons past and bridal is worse but I’m not there yet.
The aroma of this place is one you get when walking into a 70s decorated, moldy, dusty, carpet stained old school department store. The designer section we bypassed and climbed the stairs, where all the lights were off and the dust was thick on the mirrors. I saw 5 dresses on a bar, 10 on another bar. As the lady asks what I’m looking for, she immediately shakes her head and says they carry no such thing. An asymmetrical, satin, fuller skirted dress apparently is the strangest thing ever. The dresses on the bar, were all samples, and everything was for sale as is. No different color choices or sizes. I reluctantly choose a few since I made the effort to go to the store to begin with. Fitting room was dirty, carpet stained so badly, after so many years I’m sure, that I was wondering if I should leave my shoes on while I tried the dresses. Apart from the dresses being my worst nightmare; Most labels are cut off with tags that have prices, but no style numbers. As I examined the dresses closer, they were yellowed with age, sequins had turned brown, hems were lined in plastic, no doubt to be sold to the next sucker, had snags, tears and stains on the inside lining and smelled. And she wanted to sell me this?
I had read review that they were snobby and Mr. Dratch himself had some attitude but they have seemingly rectified that situation.
Everyone was nice, Inna, David Dratch, both were polite.
Needless to say, I left quickly, the mildew had sparked an allergy attack and I was left wondering how they have managed to stay in business all these years.

Apparently, Inna is the only consultant here who knows what she’s doing. Needless to say, she was not my consultant. We walked in 2 days before I made the appointment to browse around, and the lady who showed us around at that point was friendly and accommodating enough, so we figured we’d give it a shot. Upon arriving at my appointment two days later, my consultant didn’t bother to introduce herself. When I tried to show her some clippings of dresses in the style I liked, she was shaking her head, saying «No, we don’t have anything like that.» Hello, do you want to sell a dress here? ‘Cause that sure isn’t the way to go about it! I mentioned that I really liked one of the dresses in our window display, and asked if it would be possible to try it on, and she refused. When I asked if I could talk to the manager, I got a flat «he’s not here.» Again, didn’t really seem like she was interested in selling to me. I finally got her to pull a few dresses from the back (I wasn’t allowed to go browse myself), and I tried them on (she did at least assist me getting in and out of them) but when I asked to know the designers and names of the three dresses I was interested, she again refused to tell me. It seems that they do this to prevent customers from going to another shop and purchasing the same dress, but honestly, why would I go somewhere else to buy if I had had a pleasant experience here? Ridiculous. Don’t go here; try Terri Lynn Bridal a few blocks away. They might have a somewhat smaller selection, but the customer service is FAR superior.

My bridesmaids and I stopped at Claire Dratch during a marathon dress shopping day to try on bridesmaid dresses. They were exceptionally rude! At one point, my bridesmaid was trying on a dress (our top choice dress!) when a sales lady opened the dressing room door without knocking (my other bridesmaids were getting dressed) and demanded that my bridesmaid immediately take off the dress so that she could show it to her customer. They would not allow us to look at the dress’s tags in order to see what designer or the price – we were told that information would be provided to us once we agreed to order. Absolutely do not go here!

I was here for the bridal portion of the store (the lower floor is for another population). No two bridal salons that I have been to are the same as far as selection, how your assigned assistant works with you, policies, etc. So, I don’t think I can rate Claire Dratch on 1. how they don’t tell you/​label the gowns with the actual designer (saying that because they bought the dress they can do whatever they want), 2. how you as a buyer are limited to what you choose because they do a majority of the dress selection for you. But, because the service was horrible and impersonable, I will give them the privilege of even one star. I made an appointment, showed up, and apparently I wasn’t scheduled at all. They did fit me in, which I was grateful for, but they acted as if I was completely in their way (fitting me in was completely their call). I did not like how they treated other customers (a couple people showed up and said they had an appointment and didn’t really greet them). I did find my dress there, though, so their eye for that dress was good.

Terrible customer service! (Zero stars).
I made an appointment early in the day. When I got to the store, the employees downstairs ignored us, but I found my way up to the bridal selection on the second floor.
As we entered the bridal section, the employee gruffly asked us what we were doing. I replied with my name and said that I had an appointment. She huffed and puffed and said that «no one told her,» and then went to check her appointment book. I was obviously a huge inconvenience to her. I browsed the rack while she was gone, and nothing caught my eye. When the woman returned, she simply repeated that «no one told her.»
I said «forget it,» and walked out of the store. I won’t be back.

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.

I hated the experience at this shop. I went to 10 bridal salons to look for dresses and this was the 2^nd to worst.
The lady whom helped us (we had an appt) didn’t introduce herself to us. She couldn’t be bothered to find me dresses to try on. I only tried on 3 and she decided she was tired of us.
They refused to tell the name of the designer and even cut out the tags so you couldn’t see whom you were trying on.
When I called back to see how much the dresses I tried on were, she just gave me prices, but didn’t identify which dress was which cost.
I would NEVER purchase a dress from this place.

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 Unilocal,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.