The Wedding Dress Exhibition, 8 Aug – 31 Oct 2012 @ National Museum of Singapore
200 years of wedding fashion from the collection of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum is currently on display for the first time in Asia at the National Museum of Singapore. It showcases more than 80 artifacts comprising wedding dresses, bridegroom attires and accessories dating from the 1800s to the early 2000s. Categorised into eight thematic sections, it depicts how wedding dress traditions have developed over time.
Take inspiration from elaborate wedding gowns designed by Charles Frederick Worth, Vera Wang, Vivienne Westwood, Christian Lacroix and John Galliano. On display are also wedding gowns worn by celebrities such as Dita von Teese and Gwen Stefanie. Wedding bells ringing, anyone?
The Wedding Dress: 200 Years of Wedding Fashion will be open from 8 August until 31 October 2012, 10:00AM – 6:00PM daily at the National Museum of Singapore. Admission is S$11.
Guided Tours:
English – Saturdays & Sundays; 11am and 2:30pm
Mandarin – Saturdays & Sundays; 11:30am and 3:30pm
Japanese – Monday, Tuesday and Thursday; 1pm
Limited to 15 participants per session, on a first-come, first-served basis.
Duration: 60 minutes; Meeting point: Exhibition Gallery 1, Basement
Extreme left: This wedding dress was worn by Eliza Larken for her marriage to William Monson at St. Giles in the Fields Church, London, on 8 May 1828. In choosing white for her wedding dress Eliza was making a fashionable choice. Her dress was made with a pair of detachable long sleeves which fit over the short puff sleeves. These would have been worn for the wedding and made the dress suitable for day wear. Worn without the long sleeves, it was transformed into evening wear.
Middle: Date of Manufacture: 1830. White muslin was popular for wedding dresses in the first half of the 19th century. All the waistlines look so tiny….
White satin and Honiton lace wedding dress
Date of manufacture: 1865
The bride’s dress was a focal point just as it is today. By 1800 it had become usual for her to wear white or cream as popularised by Queen Victoria. The colour as it implied purity, cleanliness and social refinement. The wide skirt of dress would have been supported underneath by a cage crinoline.This dress was worn by Eliza Penelope Bright for her marriage to Joseph Bright at St James’s, Piccadilly on 16th February 1865. Wedding dresses are one of the rare types of garment for which the name of the wearer and the date of her marriage are often recorded.
1800s Wedding Veil. I would wear that – now!
Wedding dress consisting of bodice, train and skirt of embroidered satin and velvet, designed by Charles Frederick Worth made in Paris, 1879-1880. Worn by Clara Mathews for her marriage at St George’s Hanover Square on 19th February 1880 to Colonel Hugh Stafford. She was the daughter of Isaac Merritt Singer, the sewing machine pioneer.
The bride who wore this dress was Lucretia Crouch, who married Benjamin Seebohm at the Friend’s Meeting House in Clevedon, 10 September 1874.
Oh la la! The groom’s favourite part of the wedding *wink*
U.gotta.be.kidding.me…I.have.to.be.dead.6.months.to.fit.into.this.tiny.thing.
Fashion and technological innovation changed the shape of late ninteenth-century corsets. As the bustle replaced the crinoline and bodices contoured the figure, corsets became longer to achieve the desired hourglass silhouette. They encased the abdomen and enveloped the hips, and the amount of whalebone also increased to give a smoother outline and help prevent wrinkling of the fabric. This corset from the 1880s is composed of twelve separate shaped pieces and forty whalebone strips.
So very Jane Austen! I would wear that too!
White tulle bonnet trimmed with sprays of artificial orange blossom
Date of manufacture: 1845
Top Left: Miniature bridesmaid’s fan gilded and lithographed with romantic 18th-century scene of shepherdess and suitor, possibly Great Britain, late 19th century.Bottom Left: This delicate orange blossom wedding wreath is a rare survival. Imitation blossom was normally made from wax, paper, or cloth, but this is made entirely from feathers and silk ribbons on fine wire. It is associated with the 1854 marriage of Elizabeth Wroughton Richards to Edward Nugée.
Top Right: Pair of white leather gloves with cream satin and lace scalloped cuffsAssociated with a wedding in 1833, accompanied by a handwritten note “The gloves I went to church in to be married March 21st 1833”
Bottom Right: Wedding favours made of wax, cloth, paper, wire and cream silk satin ribbon in 1889. Wedding favours were small mementos handed out to guests at the wedding.
Men’s wedding waistcoats from the 1800s. Floral motifs were popular for weddings, as forget-me-nots symbolise true love and lily of the valley represents purity of heart and happiness.
Left: Flat soled ‘slipper’ shoes were made with minimal variation for over 50 years. They were widely worn between 1800 and 1850, after which time they gradually fell out of fashion. They were not made to stand up to much wear, with their delicate fabric and thin leather soles.Right: Shoes with modest heels first came into fashion at the end of the 1850s, after nearly 50 years of low-heeled and flat-soled footwear. During the 1880s, the heel shape became more waisted, echoing the 18th century ‘louis’ heel.
Headdress
The highlight of the exhibition, this stunning silk satin wedding dress has an almost three-metre long train that took 30 women six weeks to complete. The dress was worth 50 pounds in the 1930s, but today it would be worth 15,000 pounds (about S$30,000).
Left: Dashing Russian uniforms and film costumes inspired this 1968 maxi-length winter wedding coatdress. Its lean lines break with traditional tiny-waisted, full-skirted styles. The fur-trimmed hood is detachable, and elaborate silver and cream frogging and trimming combine with the floral cloque to create an opulent, up-to-the-minute wedding outfit.
Wedding Coat with hand-painted floral details
“This looks my grandmother’s curtains.”
Well, you are right! During World War II when fabric was rationed, resourceful brides turned materials such as upholstery or curtains for their wedding dresses. Well, that’s better than having a micro-mini wedding dress back in the traditional, conservative era.
This Vera gown was worn with Havianas! Cool.
Gwen Stefani wore this custom-made pink and white silk faille wedding dress by John Galliano for Dior when she married Gavin Rossdale on 14 September 2002 at St. Paul’s Church in London.
Burlesque queen Dita von Teese wore a royal purple silk taffeta gown by Vivienne Westwood and a tri-corned hat designed by Stephen Jones and matching Mr. Pearl corset for her wedding nuptials to shock rocker Marilyn Manson on 3 December 2005 at Helnwein’s Irish castle. The dinner was as goth as one could imagine.
Gown by Nina Ricci for Dita von Teese
Gown by Christian Lacroix
Worn by Sarah Jessica Parker in a scene from Sex & The City
By the 1960s, wedding dresses got less elaborate
Quality ready-to-wear clothing competed with the high fashion market in the post war years.
Also on display are bridal gowns from the National Museum of Singapore’s collection featuring the Chinese, Malays, Indians and Peranakans (Straits-born Chinese) over the past 100 years.
Malay Wedding costumes
Chinese wedding costumes
Elaborate Peranakan (Straits Chinese) wedding costume
Declarations of love from the master. I think I would tear if my loved one recited that to me. I do, I do, I do!
Sustainable love is indeed friendship set to music – both in harmony and everything said is music to the ears. Love with fireworks are great, but often burn out fast too. I used wish for love at first sight, but over the years I have realised it’s more like lust at first sight! Maybe I am turning pessismistic…
Now, I think peaceful, lasting love is the best, where we can hold hands and leisurely walk in the park in 40 years’ time, and I will still be the cutest creature on earth to him. To me, that’s love ❤
spunktitud3 