With the massive atrium, and with all the wedding fever running high in my house in preparation for my older sister Marika’s wedding, I planned a visit to see this collection of wedding dresses, showing from May 3rd until 15th March next year at the V&A.
The fashion wing at the V&A is an amazing space for an exhibition, with the atrium and upper deck open. But it still gets me how, despite how the museum should take pride in providing so much inspiration for designers, they STILL won’t allow sketching or photographs!Artist peeves aside, I was struck by one thing in particular about the exhibition. The display showed the evolution of wedding attire traditions. For example, the shift from morning church wedding requiring brides to wear gloves and cover their shoulders, to performing the services in private family parlors calling for a less formal dress code. Personally I was curious to learn a little more about the origins of wedding dresses (why a veil, why white etc?) On screens they showed video footage of several royal weddings in recent history, including Princess Diana’s.
The upper deck though had the real show stoppers! Larger than dress wedding dresses worn by celebrities like Kate Moss were displayed, stating the message of how celebrity driven weddings have become with all the publicity of the net boosts today. People are becoming more and more edgy and personal in their wedding gowns, wanting to make a red carpet worthy statement on their special day. I love this idea, how it breaks away from the historical icon of a bride being offered as some kind of gift to a man! And not all the dresses were camera-conscious but practical. For example, one gown showed the trend of dancing at reception and therefor needing to more flexible (no trains, simple silhouette etc).
My favorite gown had to be Ian Stewart’s Flower Bomb, a gorgeous explosion of soft netting and taffeta!
A great visit and one I’d wish to repeat with the mother of the bride. However, I didn’t stay long, getting a little teary eyed at the idea of Marika dawning one of these bad boys herself shortly...
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