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Not all women marry in white, of course. My mother wore deep orange-rust velvet for her September wedding long ago. Nor has white always been traditional for European and American bridal gowns. That started after 1840, when Queen Victoria’s white wedding gown set a new fashion among the wealthy.
White was a color of conspicuous consumption because it was so hard to clean. (Nothing to do with purity or innocence.) Until well into the twentieth century, even the elites expected to wear their gowns again for other occasions. Most brides simply wore their best dress, which might or might not be new. The single-use white wedding gown did not become widespread until after World War II. Traditions are customs, beliefs, or practices passed down through generations. In wedding fashion as in more important spheres, they’re not to be confused with eternal truth or the way things were always done.
4 Comments
Interesting that the white wedding dress tradition is only 179 years old. Sounds like the white dress=purity connection was added later. I've attended many weddings that didn't follow the tradition. I've noticed color is becoming more frequent in US wedding dresses. Heck, if Vera Wang is designing red, yellow, and pink gowns for brides, the trend is changing. ; ) Rebecca It surprised me, too - especially to learn that it's not much over seventy years old as a widespread custom, not just for the rich. I always thought of my mother's darker dress as an outlier, but apparently not, as she married (in Canada) before WWII. The purity connection got added in the nineteenth century, perhaps inspired by other church traditions about baptismal gowns and first communion dresses, so it's old but as an afterthought rather than the original reason.
Walter Hassenpflug
6/19/2019 01:44:08 pm
Sarah, I learned alot from you about that "tradition." When I think of brides from a century or more ago, I think about why that female was chosen, not what she might wear on the wedding day. Large females were chosen over "slim and trim" because PLUS size meant that she was well fed and healthy, capable of producing healthy babies. Sizes 7, 8, 9, etc were not considered healthy choices and likely came from poor, malnurished families, and less likely to produce healthy offspring.
Walter, great to hear from you! That's fascinating about what counted as healthy and attractive in times past. To be well fed and plump was to be healthy for child-bearing and also, probably, relatively well-to-do - another form of conspicuous consumption. In days when most paid labor was physical, the wealthy might tend more toward plus-sizes partly because they got more food and partly because they didn't need to be as physically active. They could sit while servants did the work. Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. Archives
March 2023
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