A common theme among our blog posts, and the inception of modern wedding trends, has skewed towards Victorian Era traditions and styles during the turn of the century across the world.
As longtime readers will know, we’ve covered many trends started by Queen Victoria of England during her own 19th century nuptials – as well as the modern day influence of early Americans bringing traditions from their family history and creating a new way of doing things.
And while we do tend to capture a number of wedding facts and tidbits, we love when we stumble across what might be a new tradition, trend or custom.
Recently, while watching Martin Scorcese’s 1990’s film “The Age of Innocence” – staring Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder and Michelle Pfiefer – our interest was peaked as the narrator casually mentions the character May (played by Wynona Ryder) wore her wedding dress to the opera, as “many Gilded Aged women did in the year following their wedding.” Though it had little to do with the advancement of the plot, our wheels began turning and almost no attention was paid to the rest of the movie itself. We had never heard of the idea of women in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s rewearing their wedding dresses on multiple occasions after the day itself. Naturally, we were curious and began to research.
At first little was found about the custom. (Surprisingly, this isn’t the number one searched topic online.) But as we continued to dive deeper into the fashion of the time, we realized a few things.
As we’ve reported before, the idea of a white wedding dress only began to gain in popularity after Queen Victoria’s 1840 wedding to Prince Albert. While the movie was set in the 1870’s, well after Queen Victoria’s nuptials, the tradition had not become a universal standard by this point. This fact could add to the notion that Gilded Age women wore their wedding dress multiple times, due to it not necessarily being a white or even new dress for the bride – though it was white in the movie and the family was considered wealthy.
Though the wealthy of the time spared no expense, it was more typical for women to use the best dress they had in their wardrobe or, if monetarily possible, have something made they could easily add into their rotation.
Additionally, as we know, fashion changes year after year and season after season. The act of rewearing a dress might have only been considered “OK” for the year following due to the changes in styles and the ability of the affluent to keep up with new trends and wardrobe staples.
Outside of these realizations, we only saw one or two mentions of this being a custom that women of the time practiced, but are chalking the idea up to convenience and practicality over a romanticized notion of wanting to relive your wedding day over and over again.
When looking at fashion in general during the end of the 19th century, more was more. The Gilded Age was a time of innovation, expansion and prosperity. And the fashion of the time followed suit. The most notable (in our opinion) garment staple was the bustle. Women’s dresses, both day and night, sported a padded undergarment that emphasized the back of the dress. As time progressed, large sleeves (known as “leg-of-mutton” sleeves) gained in popularity, as did the S-shaped corset and the rise in use of velvet, silk, lace and ruffles. Accessories were also very important during this time. Gloves, chokers, rings, tiaras and headpieces were all used as forms of expression and style.
There are several designers that look to the feel of the time to create modern interpretations. A few designers and labels we like include Claire Pettibone, Maggie Sottero, Olivia Bottega and even companies like Reformation.
