Hey, everybody! It's been a really long time since I posted anything substantial here, but this fall I was lucky enough to curate my first exhibition at the Fenimore Art Museum: Elegant New York, a sampling of garments from our collection that were made by professional dressmakers or tailors in New York State, as well … Continue reading Wedding dress made by Jane Warnock, 1837
Category: wedding dress
Before Victoria: Royal Weddings (Part III)
(Part I of this series and part II, if you're not coming to this from one or the other.) Royal weddings need to be dealt with on their own, because their dress traditions differed from those of ordinary and even aristocratic women. These differences are key to understanding the context of the gown that Queen … Continue reading Before Victoria: Royal Weddings (Part III)
Before Victoria: White Wedding Dress (Part II)
So, previously I showed you a lot of examples of actual white or white-ish gowns worn for weddings, including fashion plates (as they are intended to be prescriptive of real clothing - they exist to tell you what you can/should wear); these prove at least that white was worn. Now I'm going to follow that up … Continue reading Before Victoria: White Wedding Dress (Part II)
Before Victoria: the White Wedding Dress in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries (Part I)
The history of white wedding dresses is a popular topic, and a few related narratives have built up in both popular and academic writing: Queen Victoria was the first to wear a white gown for her wedding in 1840, and women began to copy her, creating a tradition. Queen Victoria was not the first to … Continue reading Before Victoria: the White Wedding Dress in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries (Part I)
Mimic of Modes 