Wedding Dress Exhibition at the V & A London

The Victoria and Albert Museum is currently showcasing a major exhibition tracing the development of wedding dresses from the late 18th century to the present day. What an fascinating history especially for brides-to-be planning and thinking about the style and design of their wedding dresses.

Before I show you some dress photos, let us first admire the grand architecture of the world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design that is the V & A.

Their permanent collection is free and photos are also allowed. Entry to exhibitions usually have fees and photos are prohibited. {Thank you HannahW for our tickets.}

This is a typical court dress during the late 18th century (a wedding dress in this style is shown further down this post). Can you imagine how heavy and cumbersome this dress must be! These court dresses use what is called a pannier aka side hoops to extend the sides of the skirt whilst keeping the front and back relatively flat. Having a wide area of the skirt provides plenty of space for elaborate embroidery and lavish designs to be displayed and appreciated. Imagine the amount of room space you would need to wear a dress like this. No wonder only the affluent and royalty could afford such dresses then and only for special occasions.

Here we have some exquisite drawings of Victorian fashion in particular the use of the crinoline to expand the size of the skirts all the way around. A quick browse on Wikipedia revealed some interesting stories relating to the crinoline such as the lady whose skirt caught fire from a cigar, not noticing it until later because the balloon-like space and structure under the skirt along with the confined air delayed the blaze, the Bristol local legend of a lady who jumped off the suspension bridge only to be saved by her skirt slowing down her descent like a parachute, and the humorous drawings of women trying to sit down while wearing crinolines often depicted in this period’s comedies.

I bought a book of postcards from the V&A shop featuring some highlights from the exhibition. The wedding dress on the left below is called Flower Bomb by Ian Stuart. This contemporary wedding dress reminds me of the crinoline: big ruffled skirt with layers and layers of fabric, possibly with a type of petticoat fabric underneath to support the shape of the skirt, and a stiff tight-fitting bodice. My youngest daughter who came with me to the exhibition chose this as her favourite wedding dress.

Below on the right is the wedding dress with side hoops circa 1775-80 as mentioned earlier in the post. The silk tassels and trims are elaborate, bold statements like a piece of art on canvas. The lace and silk brocade shoes were from 1850 and 1914 respectively.

Below to the right is a 1902 silk wedding dress with machine-made lace. Fashion during the Edwardian decades was characterised by a concealed look: stiff collars, high necklines and high waistline, a lot of lace, pearls and beads. The wedding dress on the left below is Jenny Peckham‘s Rapunzel wedding dress 2014 in silk and Swarovksi crystals bears unmistakeable references to this period.

The wedding dress below on the left may look familiar to many of us. It was worn by the Duchess of Cornwall for her wedding blessing in 2005 when she married the Prince of Wales. It is an exquisitely tailored coat and dress made in silk, hand-painted and embroidered with gold threads designed by Robinson Valentine {Anna Valentine}. The wedding dress on the right is from 1899, worn by a bride 35 years of age who was considered too old to wear white. Apparently, it was Queen Victoria who set the tradition for white wedding dresses although she wasn’t the first royal to wear white. Coloured dresses were the usual wedding dresses at that time mainly because many could not afford to have a dress solely made for their wedding and so they wore their usual, though nicer clothes.

The Bird of Paradise dress below was Dita Von Teese’s wedding dress when she married Marilyn Manson in 2005. This Vivienne Westwood exaggerated creation looks back to the Victorian era of voluminous dresses, small waists and tight torsos.

I also bought a few items from the V&A shop, one of which is about a little girl called Clara who designed her own outfit for a wedding she was attending and how what could have been a disastrous process ended up creating the perfect dress for the wedding day surprise.

I will be talking about these two wedding items in future blogposts so stay tuned.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be blogging about how to plan a vintage-inspired wedding decade by decade i.e. 1920s, 1930s and so on… focusing on the key aspects of how a contemporary present day wedding can have that vintage look and feel even if just a touch, and featuring real weddings I have taken over the years. So if you would like to keep updated, please follow me on Facebook or Twitter so you will get notified when the blogs are published. I hope you enjoyed this blogpost. Please share it if you did and know of anyone who may find this interesting or getting married this year!