Sterlingspider, goddess of nearly all things crafty, recently sent along a link to a blog post over at Mary Cirbet’s Needle ‘N Thread that featured a beautifully embroidered wedding dress that is nearing its centennial anniversary. While there is unfortunately no full-length photograph of the wedding dress, there are plenty of images that illustrate just how well this garment seems to have stood the test of time… from the point of view of style, anyway.
Unfortunately it was not well-stored, and as a result “the tulle on the shoulders and sleeves has turned a dark brown, and although feeling somewhat brittle in some places, it can still be gently handled. The lining of the dress is decaying in shreds, but the silk crepe of the dress itself is still in lovely shape.” Shame, that. I think it must have been absolutely lovely in all its glory way back in the day, and I see similar patterns of embroidery (positively not hand embroidered) all the time on present-day wedding dresses.
We can learn a lot from this wedding dress with its embroidery that looks stunningly gorgeous after nearly 100 years. First, classic beauty never truly goes out of fashion. Styles may change, albeit very slowly in the land of brides, but there are some things that will plainly look just as good 50 years from now as they do today and other things that will look terribly dated a mere 10 years from now. Second, it pays to invest in quality if you’re planning on keeping your wedding dress to pass on to tomorrow’s bride. The silk crepe and silk thread is still looking good, and the detail looks like it was done yesterday. If you can afford not to, don’t scrimp.
And finally, if you’re going to preserve your wedding dress for whatever reason, do it correctly so we can all ooh and ahh over it decades and decades from now!
this wedding dress looks cute,but the color of it i think is not to white and that doesn’t looks so good….but anyway i like those flowers
Ramirez, not that I have any problem with a wedding gown not being pure white (mine wasn’t, actually), but chances are it was much whiter when it was first made. The same storage that allowed the tulle to become dark brown would also have allowed the silk crepe to darken.
To get a better idea of the sort of lines the gown would have had, here are a couple links to pictures of actual wedding gowns of the period displayed in a way that they can be seen more clearly:
http://pics.livejournal.com/gogm/pic/002hxsz4
http://www.victorianbridalmuseum.com/images/shopping/full/1909_gown_f.jpg
and a couple wedding photographs of the time, as well:
http://wenderful.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/wedding-1909.jpg
http://www.rukashaza.com/gen/HSphotos/1909WmMaryWedding2.jpg
Ooh, the second one is my favorite!
I love the first gold-toned dress – reminds me of seeing Queen Victoria’s (Regina, not Beckham) dresses on display in Bath’s fashion museum.
Silk tulle is HORRIBLY perishable in its own right, alas; it’s possible that the best storage practices in the world might not have kept it from becoming brittle.
Ramirez, white silk generally tends to darken and grow more ivory than white, with age.