When Queen Victoria wore this white dress of Spitalfields silk and Honiton lace to her
wedding in 1840, she broke from royal custom and encouraged a lasting tradition for Western
bridal fashion. This is the gown worn by Queen Victoria at
her wedding to Prince Albert. The structured, eight-piece bodice features a wide, open neckline.
The off-the-shoulder sleeves are short and puffed. The pointed waistline is a deep v
shape. Both the neckline and sleeves were trimmed with lace.
The floor-length skirt contains seven widths of fabric in forward-facing pleats.
At the ceremony, Victoria wore a satin train over six yards long, which twelve attendants
carried down the aisle (Tobin, Pepper & Willes 32).
The Queen adorned her skirt with an exquisite Honiton lace flounce, which is now too fragile
to mount with the dress. On her head she wore a veil and a wreath of
orange blossoms. Her jewelry included a Turkish diamond necklace
and earrings, and a sapphire brooch gifted by Albert.
Queen Victoria’s wedding to Prince Albert in 1840 was as much of a PR event as it was
a celebration of love. Victoria was completely smitten with her cousin Albert, to whom she
proposed. After he accepted her proposal, she confided in her diary:
“[T]o feel I was, and am, loved by such an Angel as Albert was too great delight to
describe!” The young couple’s love also was an ideal
opportunity to improve the monarchy’s image. Leading up to this moment, the British monarchy
was largely disconnected from the people and did not have a glowing reputation. The monarchy
seized the moment by inviting the nation to participate in the heavily romanticized and
publicized wedding – displaying Victoria as both Queen and wife for the first time.
It may seem like the norm today, but never before had there been such a public royal
wedding, with the bride (and Queen) paraded through the streets in a shared, national
celebration (Haynes).
The idea of a white wedding dress was not novel in 1840. It wasn't the only acceptable
color, but it had been popular for centuries.
Something that’s important to understand about historic dress in general is just how
expensive clothing and textiles were. Having a new dress made was a huge expense, and even
the wealthy couldn’t afford to wear a dress for just one occasion like most people do
today.
Nineteenth century brides would have re-worn or re-purposed the dress they were married
in. Such a dress would have been referred to as their “best dress.” For working-class
women, common colors were russet and brown (Fig. 13). Some even had their best dress
made in colors like grey or light purple so that they were also appropriate for mourning.
I mentioned that white was a popular wedding dress color, but that mostly applied only
to wealthy people. White garments were incredibly difficult to keep white, and for an average
working person it would have been impractical and impossible.
So, Queen Victoria wasn’t the first to wear a white wedding dress, but her dress was unlike
that which any monarch had worn before her.
While the luxurious silk and lace undoubtedly made Victoria’s gown magnificent, the color
white was simple in comparison to previous royal brides, who typically wore silver or
gold as a symbol of their royalty. In contrast, this is the wedding gown worn by Princess
Charlotte of Wales in 1816. The empire-waisted wedding gown is dazzling, completely covered
in silver and gold metallic threads. In fact, the dress Queen Victoria wore to the Great
Exhibition in 1851 was more glitzy than her wedding dress!
Historians have put forward a few different ideas about why Victoria chose white. Perhaps
she wanted to be seen as a feminine, traditional wife, and therefore shunned the robes of state.
Perhaps she believed white was the perfect color to highlight the expensive lace.
Victoria’s famously white gown was constructed with English Spitalfields silk. Spitalfields,
a district in London, became a notable British silk-manufacturing site in the late seventeenth
century. The city’s silks were made even more prominent by a wave of French refugees
in 1685, some of whom brought their silk-weaving knowledge with them. As a result, the Spitalfields
silk trade had a very significant and unparalleled rise in the early eighteenth century.
As Spitalfields silk became more luxurious, it became coveted and increasingly expensive
and fashionable. (Any women’s history lovers in the audience should Google Anna Maria Garthwaite!)
However, that splendor came to an end with the introduction of the power-loom, which
made silk-weaving a less specialized profession. By the beginning of the nineteenth century,
Spitalfields was losing its monopoly on the silk trade. The Queen’s commission was both
an act of patriotism and a stimulus to the economy.
Similar to the silk industry, the English handmade lace trade was also in decline in
the nineteenth century. In an effort to boost the traditional lace-making industry, the
crown commissioned William Dyce to design the lace for the Queen’s wedding ensemble.
The style of lace was referred to as Honiton, named for a town of the same name — although
Victoria’s lace was worked on in a nearby village called Beer. The commission of the
Queen’s lace flounce employed two-hundred lacemakers, who were otherwise destitute.
Victoria treasured her lace flounce and veil, and continued to wear them to special occasions
throughout her life. She can be seen wearing both in this 1893 photograph, which was later
used as her Diamond Jubilee portrait.
The bright white vision of Queen Victoria on the happiest day of her life is a stark
contrast to what would be her dark sartorial future.
Prince Albert passed away in 1861, and Victoria grieved him for the remainder of her life.
At the time, widows were expected to wear mourning dress for two or three years after
their husbands’ passing, making a gradual transition from full to half-mourning. However,
Victoria’s chronic depression and prolonged grief cast a forty-year shadow over her wardrobe.
I think it’s profoundly poetic that Victoria’s most iconic looks are black and white — polar
opposite colors. At the same time, they are both inextricably linked to Victoria’s love
for her husband, Prince Albert.