The history of the wedding dress
Image Credit: Art by The Style Historian, images from Pinterest.
I’m definitely in my wedding guest era, and yesterday I attended my first wedding of the season.
Across the globe, there are many rich bridal traditions – spanning cultures, religions and histories. Despite differences in attire, there are many similarities – a bridal gown as status, celebration and as statement. The main event.
In my little corner of the world, white wedding gowns are the standard. But the styles themselves are endless – romantic, soft and whimsical; classical and traditionalist; boho flower crowns; modern elegance, to glamorous.
While I’m not engaged or doing wedding planning, there are quizzes to determine your bridal style, and a handful of professionals you can hire to help plan your big day.
With so much emphasis on this milestone, I had to unpack – why are we wearing white? Are its origins in the church, symbolizing purity? Or is the inception of a wedding dress a nod to something else?
Let’s dig in.
The origins
Wearing a unique garment on your wedding day dates back to Chinese folklore – with princesses wearing a phoenix dress and crown to bring good luck and strength in her marriage. Today, traditional Chinese brides often wear a red gown with a phoenix tail, a symbol of good fortune – but often change into a white dress for additional photos.
Image Credit: The qun kwa, a traditional Chinese wedding dress typically worn for the tea ceremony and wedding – originating in the Ming Dynasty, via East Meets Dress.
Image Credit: A modern take on a traditional Chinese wedding gown, featuring a more current silhouette, via East Meets Dress.
In Korea and Japan, brides wore silk wedding robes in different styles based on the dynasty and season – but always brightly coloured. Looking to ancient times, Roman brides wore yellow veils, symbolizing warmth, with brides in Athens wearing long robes in red or violet.
Image Credit: A traditional Korean bridal robe from the Daegu National Museum, Vogue.
Image Credit: A modern hanbok, a traditional Korean wedding garment often made from silk, Leehwa Weddings.
In Southeast Asian cultures, it is generally reported that brides wear red and have done so since the Indus Valley civilization. The wedding sari is red and green, with golden brocade (a decorative, woven fabric) – but colours depend on the region, caste and religion. In Africa, bridal attire dates back more than 3,000 years to the Asante people of Ghana, with colourful and elaborate gowns, and large beaded necklaces plated in yellow gold.
There are many rich traditions and cultures across Southeast Asia and Africa, and this does not even begin to capture the nuance of those wedding traditions – below are a few examples of wedding attire.
Image Credit: A modern wedding sari – however some brides also opt to be married in a lehenga (a two-piece set with a long skirt, blouse and scarf), Sanskriti Cuttack.
Image Credit: A modern Ghanaian wedding dress – gowns are typically made from the traditional kente cloth and colours are typically gold and yellow, via Bridal Musings.
Image Credit: A modern Kenyan wedding look incorporating a white dress with more traditional elements – key to this is the Maasai necklace, worn to celebrate a special relationship or life event, via Bridal Musings.
And in Western Europe up until the Victorian Age, blue was a very popular colour because it was associated with purity. But dresses weren’t limited to colour – women were married in red, yellows and green, with burgundy being a popular choice.
A status symbol
Among many cultures, the wedding dress in the pre-Victorian Age also demonstrated your status via how much materials were used. This is also true in African culture, where brides wore all the jewellery they owned to denote status.
The longer the train, or the more flowy a sleeve, indicated a wealthier family.
(This doesn’t come as too big of a surprise – given how often marriages were a business/political agreement vs the love stories we see today.)
In Elizabethan times, upper class brides wore satin, velvet or corduroy, while those who were not wealthy wore wool, cotton or flax – in direct contrast to the minimalistic, quiet luxury we’ve seen in recent years.
But how did we end up with the white European gowns we see today?
First cousins who married each other.
The inspo
It all changed in 1840 when Queen Victoria wore a white, lace gown with a floral crown when marrying her first cousin, Prince Albert.
While most believe white symbolized purity – it actually symbolized wealth and was not a colour associated with weddings, at all. White was seen as impractical, as it would easily tarnish.
Breaking royal custom and forgoing wearing the traditional royal red, Queen Victoria’s unique choice of colour sparked the outlasting trend in Western bridal fashion.
Her reason for wearing white? It was chosen to highlight the delicate lace of her gown.
Seemingly always obsessed with a royal wedding, people romanticized their love story and women began seeking out wearing white in a similar silhouette (an emphasis on the waist, with a large hoop skirt) – the very traditional look we continue to see today.
Image Credit: Queen Victoria’s Wedding Dress in 1840, via Fashion History.
Up until this time, depending on your economic status, brides wore the best dress they owned.
For some, this meant a multitude of colours – with white generally worn by the upper class, blue to showcase purity and lower status women wearing whatever they had. With red or blue being the most popular, white dresses were generally reserved for women being presented at court.
Wedding dresses were worn multiple times – even the Queen herself re-wore her wedding dress. As popularity soared, white as a symbol of romance and innocence began to permeate, in addition to its associations with wealth.
The tradition era
It was the confluence of two societal shifts that created the tradition of the single-use wedding dress and throwing the lavish modern party – society becoming more prosperous following WWII and clothing becoming much cheaper to produce through industrial revolution.
This obsession with the white wedding gown also impacted couture, as designers were creating wedding looks for their private clients, establishing the tradition to always close their summer couture runways with a white wedding gown from their personal wedding designs.
An iconic white wedding gown featured in a couture show is YSL’s cocoon dress from 1965:
Image Credit: Model Audrey Marnay closing out the 1965 runway show in the knit bridal gown, History Daily.
(It’s unclear if someone eventually actually wore this for their wedding… but it’s a look still discussed today, with YSL claiming he took inspo from Russian nesting dolls.)
A new approach
While the pandemic brought about disruption to the wedding industry as a whole, downsizing and shrinking celebrations out of necessity, a new trend we’re seeing emerge is the continued growing popularity of thrifting and second-hand shopping – including for your wedding dress.
(@madalynnewell), one of my favourite thrifting accounts, recently shared her $8 wedding dress, which I absolutely loved. Simple, elegant – and sustainable.
Image Credit: @madalynnewell
Many of my girlfriends thrifted their wedding dresses – one found her dress on Etsy and had it tailored to fit her perfectly, another found hers on a second-hand wedding dress buy/sell app.
Here are some other tips and resources for second-hand bridal shopping:
- Rent a dress from shops like Fitzroy (where I always rent my formal wear from – including this latest wedding!)
- Stillwhite – founded by an Australian couple following their wedding, the buy/sell platform is currently active in 33 countries with $126M (CAD) in sales since 2010.
- Be sure to check if your community has a local, second-hand bridal store.
- Your local thrift or vintage store.
Recently, a new report from ThredUp found that the second-hand clothing industry is on track to take 10% of global fashion sales – with 31% year over year growth and 163 brands now offering resale.
With younger consumers shopping second-hand more than ever, online resale is expected to reach $40 billion by 2028.
While the wedding industry isn’t slowing down anytime soon, I’ll be on the watch to see if minimalism and sustainability will return to weddings as consumers shift focus.
Until next time,
- TSH xx
Thanks again for being here with me - let me know if there’s any other topics you’re interested in. Have a wonderful week ahead! Speak soon.
Sources: Vogue, EraGem, Wikipedia – Wedding Sari, ESG News, LoveToKnow, JStor, FashionLawJournal, FashionHistory