Material Descriptions

My objects are two wedding dresses and one pair of wedding shoes. Although people tend to imagine wedding dresses as white, those two early 19^th century dresses are not white. History of white wedding dresses started in 1840 when queen of Victoria first wore a white dress in her wedding ceremony in England. Until then, colors of wedding dresses were not typically white. Especially for working class brides, wedding dresses should be remake for daily dresses after the wedding ceremony. White was not practical color for them considering daily works. In that sense, one of my objects from 1837 might be for a working class bride. Although once white dresses became popular after queen Victoria’s wedding, not all of brides could afford white dresses. Only for upper class brides could imitate Victoria’s new style of white dresses. The dress from 1845 seems more upper class brides’, not only because of rich details and materials, but also the color of ivory which close to white.

One of the dresses was made in 1837. This dress has flower needle works on striped silk fabric. Pattern of the fabric is beautiful. Flower needlework has five colors of pink, light pink, green, light green, and white. These small follower needle works were connected by ivory colored art nouveau style line. Fabric has colored strip print of dark brown, ivory, and light ivory. The fabric use a lot of colors, but all colors matches each other. On the top of the dress, there are fringes crossing from each shoulder. The fringes and needlework on tops create inverted triangle shaped sharp style. Two sleeves are long covers whole arms. On top of the arms, there are detailed shirring, which makes brides’ arm thinner. Neck cut is widely open, which might show brides’ collarbone. Compare to the volume of the bottoms, tops are very small. Length of tops is 12 inches and waist is only 24 inches. On the other hand, the length of skirt is 38 inches long. There are wires to hold body shape on tops. However, since this dress was a remade of bride’s grandmother’s dress, this small tops style were design of the eighteen century. 

Another dress was made in 1845. This is a one color beautiful silk dress. There are white flower needle works round on skirt of ivory fabric. Significance of this dress is a lot of fringes. On the bottom of the skirt, there are two lines of ivory colored fringes. This is unusual for wedding dresses, but those fringes make a skirt bigger. This dress also has small tops. Shape of neck line is v-line cut and widely open. There are fringes on tops too and shapes like inverted triangle. Length of the tops is 15 inches and waist is 20 inches. Compare with 42 inches length of skirt, this dress also designed with small tops. There are two breast pads inside of the dress. Since the dress has only 20 inches waist, the bride must be very tiny shaped and needed to make her breast bigger with those pads. It is interesting to know ideal women’s body images have not changed since early 19^th century. On the back of this dress, there are small buttons. There are 14 buttons from top to bottom of upper body. Those small buttons are covered by silk ivory fabrics too. Since it is hard to wear by her with those a lot of back buttons, this dress was for an upper class bride who can have helper to wear. Also this dress does not have wires to hold body, so bride had to wear a corset inside. Differ from the flower dress, this dress has short sleeves. Sleeves go down till middle of upper arms, and have white flower needle works on edges. Short sleeves are trend in the 1840s.

Finally this ivory fringed dress has pair of ivory shoes. This shoes covered laces which are same materials of entire shoes. Shiny ivory fabric matches with ivory dress. This pair of shoes has short heels. Compare with contemporary time, height of heels are not that high. However considering the time period of 1840s when most of people wearing flat shoes, this pair of shoes with heels were made for special occasion.