How Queen Victoria’s wedding gown changed wedding fashion

[Kazimiera]

How Queen Victoria’s wedding gown changed wedding fashion

Source: http://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/0...dding-fashion/



Queen Victoria, at her wedding to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on 10 February 1840, selected a white dress, an unusual choice at a time when colors were more usual, made from heavy silk satin.

The Honiton lace used for her wedding dress proved an important boost to Devon lace-making. Queen Victoria has been credited with starting the tradition of white weddings and white bridal gowns, although she was not the first royal to be married in white.


10th February 1840 Queen Victoria (1819 – 1901) and Prince Albert (1819 – 1861) on their return from the marriage service at St James’s Palace

The plain, cream-coloured satin gown was made from fabric woven in Spitalfields, east London, and trimmed with a deep flounce and trimmings of lace hand-made in Honiton and Beer, in Devon. This demonstrated support for English industry, particularly the cottage industry for lace.


Pair of white satin shoes worn by Queen Victoria on her wedding day, 10 February 1840.

Queen Victoria described her choice of dress in her journal thus: “I wore a white satin dress, with a deep flounce of Honiton lace, an imitation of an old design. My jewels were my Turkish diamond necklace & earrings & dear Albert’s beautiful sapphire brooch.”


Queen Victoria, in her wedding dress and veil from 1840, painted in 1847 as an anniversary gift for her husband, Prince Albert.

The handmade lace motifs were appliquéd onto cotton machine-made net. Orange flower blossoms, a symbol of fertility, also trimmed the dress and made up Victoria’s wreath, which she wore instead of a tiara over her veil. The veil, which matched the flounce of the dress, was four yards in length and 0.75 yards wide. The slippers she wore matched the white color of the dress. The train of the dress, carried by her bridesmaids, measured 18 feet (5.5 m) long.


Victoria wearing her wedding veil and lace for her Diamond Jubilee Portrait, 1897.

Victoria revisited the lace-makers to create the christening gown worn by her children, including Albert Edward, the future Edward VII.

This gown was worn for the christening of all subsequent Royal babies until the baptism of James, Viscount Severn in 2008, when a replica was used for the first time. As a mark of support for the Honiton industry, in addition to often wearing their lace on her and her children’s clothes, Victoria insisted her daughters also order Honiton lace for their wedding dresses.

Victoria also wore her wedding lace mounted on the dresses she wore to the christenings of her nine children (except for Albert Edward’s, for which she wore her Garter robes), and to the marriages of two of her children, her eldest daughter, Victoria’s, in 1858, and her youngest son, Leopold’s, in 1882. Her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, was permitted to wear it as part of her wedding gown in 1885.

Victoria also wore the lace to the wedding of her grandson George (the future George V) to Mary of Teck in 1893,and for her Diamond Jubilee official photograph in 1897. When Victoria died, she was buried with her wedding veil over her face. In 2012 it was reported that while the dress itself had been conserved and displayed at Kensington Palace that year, the lace was now too fragile to move from storage.

[LouisFerdinand]

Queen Victoria designed the dress herself.

[UkrainianGirl]

Yeah...I still like my wedding dress better lol.

But interesting style she has though.

[Kazimiera]

Yeah...I still like my wedding dress better lol.

But interesting style she has though.

SHOW!!!

[Kazimiera]

10 Facts About the Victorian Tradition of White Weddings

Source: http://fiveminutehistory.com/10-fact...hite-weddings/



1. White weddings started with Queen Victoria

Although Queen Victoria was not the first monarch to wear white at her wedding, she is credited with starting the tradition of a white wedding when she chose to wear a white wedding dress to marry Prince Albert in 1840.


The Marriage of Queen Victoria, 10 February 1840 by George Hayter

2. Wearing white was unusual at the time of her wedding

At the time of Queen Victoria’s wedding, wearing white was considered unusual, but in less than a decade, it was being proclaimed as a long-standing tradition. Godey’s Lady’s Book—the most widely circulated magazine in America—wrote:

Custom has decided, from the earliest ages, that white is the most fitting hue, whatever may be the material. It is an emblem of the purity and innocence of girlhood, and the unsullied heart she now yields to the chosen one.


Queen Victoria sported the rounded shoulderline that enhanced the length of her neck—a look that was prized through most of the nineteenth century. From the 1830s to the 1880s, the lowered splayed stance of corset straps and open neckline lent a romantic effect.

3. White dresses symbolized innocence and status

Not only did white wedding dresses connote innocence and sexual purity, but because laundry technology was not very advanced in the early Victorian period, they also represented a way to display conspicuous consumption.

White wedding dresses showed that the bride’s family could afford a dress that would be ruined by any type of work, indicating that they must be from the leisure class.


Silk-satin, trimmed with Honiton appliqué lace, machine net and bobbin lace, hand-sewn. Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II 2016

4. Queen Victoria wrote about her wedding dress in her 122-volume diary


Wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert

Queen Victoria was an avid diarist, filling 122 volumes during her lifetime. Describing her choice of wedding dress, she wrote:

I wore a white satin dress, with a deep flounce of Honiton lace, an imitation of an old design. My jewels were my Turkish diamond necklace & earrings & dear Albert’s beautiful sapphire brooch.

5. Her wedding supported the English lace cottage industry


Examples of Honiton Lace from Honiton, Devon

The lace used for Queen Victoria’s wedding dress was from Honiton in Devon. Lace making was still a cottage industry and her choice demonstrated support for working-class Britain.

The lace comprised of sprigs or motifs made separately and then sewn together into a net.

It is thought Flemish refugees brought the art to England in the mid-to-late 16th century.

6. She commissioned Franz Xaver Winterhalter to paint an anniversary gift for Albert


Queen Victoria by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1847. Miniature by John Haslem.

In 1847, Victoria commissioned Franz Xaver Winterhalter to paint a portrait of her wearing her wedding clothes as an anniversary present for Prince Albert. The portrait was also copied as an enamel miniature by John Haslem.

7. Her veil was 12 ft long

The veil, which matched the flounce of the dress, was four yards in length and 0.75 yards wide. When Victoria died, she was buried with her wedding veil over her face.

Wedding veils helped promote the Victorian ideal of modesty and propriety. Etiquette books spread the notion that decorous brides were naturally too timid to show their faces in public until they were married.


1868 Wedding Dress. American. Cincinnati Art Museum

8. She wore specially made matching silk slippers


Queen Victoria’s wedding slippers

Queen Victoria’s white satin slippers matched the white colour of her dress. Long ribbon ties fastening round the ankles held the shoes in place. They were made by Gundry and Son, 1 Soho Square, Boot and Shoemakers to the Queen.

9. Her train needed 12 bridesmaids


A watercolour design for Queen Victoria’s twelve bridesmaids’ dresses. Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II 2016

The train of Queen Victoria’s wedding dress measured 18 feet (5.5 m) long, requiring 12 bridesmaids to carry it.

10. She started a trend followed by millions

Hollywood movie weddings, especially in the second half of the 20th century, have helped the popularity of white weddings.

But British royal weddings have probably done more to ensure the tradition of white weddings is here to stay than anything else.

In 1981, 750 million people tuned in to watch Charles, Prince of Wales marry Diana Spencer in her elaborate white taffeta dress, with a 25-foot-long train. This wedding is generally considered the most influential white wedding of the 20th century—and also the most expensive at an inflation-adjusted $110 million.

[Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas]

It is indeed a fairly new wedding tradition. In Portugal the traditional wedding dress is actually mostly black so the opposite. However, nowadays it is not common anymore.