Victoria's Wedding Dress 1840
"Queen Victoria’s dress was of rich white satin, trimmed with orange flower blossoms. The headdress was a wreath of orange flower blossoms, and over this a beautiful veil of Honiton lace, worn down."http://www.queenvictoria.victoriana.com/RoyalWeddings/Queen-Victoria-Wedding.html
Victoria's wedding to Prince Albert took place on the 10th of February, 1840, in the royal chapel of St. James, London. Her dress itself is gorgeous the rich colouring from the satin that almost looks like a duck egg colour because its so shiny we do know though that it was in fact white, the material is clearly satin; a luxurious and precious material. The dress was clearly thought about, a new marriage, in the season where life begins again after a cold winter.
The choice of a white wedding dress at that age was actually unusual as coloured victorian dresses were more usual; Queen Victoria is actually credited as starting the craze of wearing white to a wedding though the idea of wearing white was in fact known though only within the wealthy nobility field as white was a wealthy colour. and no there wasn't bleach.
Victoria's dress is especially famous at the time and now because of the Honiton lace that she decided to have on her dress, exactly delicate honiton lace is one of the finest laces to have but with it bobbin lac designed usually in a floral pattern the finished result is very pretty. The lace industry at the time was at a bust; back a few hundred years before the lace market was huge especially when it first hit England of course at the time the lace was hand made but when technology moved on and machines started making the lace there was a decline in the market. i.e a huge loss in jobs. Victoria deciding to wear huge piece of this lace on her wedding dress was huge. why? because she was QUEEN. The queen was the person that all women was idolised by; she was powerful, the leader of the empire. Of course after Victoria wore the piece the busy went back into over drive.
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| Victoria's actual wedding dress |
Bridal Hair
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| Victorian Ladies tended to wear accessories in the hair, flowers were popular for bridal hair |
Not looking particularly happy on her special day but this photo is perfect for showing what was popular with bridal hair, a clean centre parting that was pinned back and I'm sure curled with a long veil that is split from the front of the hair with a gorgeous floral crown that is striking and like a beautiful crown on her head. This style is slightly later in the 1800's
The V&A
How perfect the V & A are currently running a wedding dress exhibition from the periods of 1775-2014 and it ends on the 15th MARCH!! why did I not know about this earlier. The V & A is a gorgeous museum full of so many precious items. The whole idea of the exhibition is tracing the idea that is our modern day white dress back through different eras.
So interesting
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