Wedding dresses 1775-2014

Beautiful exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the history of wedding dresses.

What was lovely about this show was that often it was known who the dress was worn by and therefore exactly when it was worn. For the later years there was also a photograph of it being worn. All the dresses were given slightly romantic titles such as “An October Wedding”. The display case had line drawing of churches at the back and often this was of a church where one of the dresses had been worn.

In the early cases I loved a dress worn by Mary Northcliffe  in York in 1807. I was a very Jane Austen empire line white muslin with asymmetric embroidery, also in white, to give it the feel of a toga. There was also an amazing dress form the late 1800’s with fringes of pearl down the front.

One whole case was given over to Margaret Whigham’s dress from 1933, designed by Norman Hartnell and worn for a big society wedding. It was shown with a film of the event.

Upstairs concentrated on the period since 1960 and included a number of designer and celebrity dresses. I loved some of the 1970s dresses which had a rather historical feel about them including one from 1978 which drew on Fortuny’s pleated ideas. It was also interesting to see the Duchess of Cornwall’s dress which was much cleverer in the flesh that one the TV. The coat was a pale blue with a gold shimmer and the hat in the shape of waves of corn was beautiful.

Most of all though I was very moved to see a dress very like the one my Mother wore and from the same year, 1957. The one on show was by, I think Normal Hartnell, my Mother’s was not. However it did make me realise that she had been the height of fashion!

Review
Evening Standard

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