The Wedding Dress: 300 Years Of Bridal Fashions

Description

Accompanying an exhibition at Te Papa, The Wedding Dress: 300 Years of Bridal Fashions draws on the Victoria and Albert Museum's superb collection of fashionable wedding dresses, as well as photographs, letters, memoirs, newspaper accounts and genealogical research to explore the history of the wedding dress and the traditions that have developed around it, from 1700 to the present day. Focusing on the white wedding dress, which first became fashionable in the early nineteenth century, the book considers the way couturiers and designers have challenged and refreshed the traditional white wedding dress and the influence of the wedding industry and its origins in the commercialization of the wedding in Victorian Britain. The Wedding Dress is not only about costume, but also about the cultivation of the image of the bride. This book is a glorious tribute to an exquisite, stylish, glamorous gown, the romance of its evolution and the splendour of its design.

Table of contents

Introduction

Silver and White 1700-90

The White Wedding Dress 1790-1840: A working-class wedding

Commercializing the White Wedding 1840-1914: Too old for white

Towards the Modern 1914-45: To wed in red

Ready-to-Wear 1945-90: A civil wedding

Choosing White 1990s to the present

Wedding Garments in the V&A

Glossary

Notes

Further Reading

Acknowledgements