200 Years of Wedding Fashion

Over the weekend, my colleagues and I had a fun outing at The Wedding Dress exhibition held at the National Museum of Singapore. The exhibition showcased an impressive collection of wedding dresses from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, along with the interesting history of the dresses and their wearers. Some of the dresses are almost 2 centuries old!

The fashion choices were greatly influenced by the economic and social conditions of the time. Like the 1841 printed wedding dress above and on the left. The bride was a farm labourer and it was far more practical and economical for her to choose something washable, coloured and printed over white and hard to handle fabrics. Many of the ladies would like to wear their wedding dresses again after their weddings too. 

Here's one unique red wedding dress from 1938. Red was a very unusual choice for a wedding dress and even the design was rather novel and simple. 

Right at the middle of the exhibition hall was this beautiful 1933 gown with a 2.6m long train! It was common for brides then to want to wear their wedding dresses for other occasions but with this impressively long train, this bride probably had the intention of wearing her wedding dress just once.

Many of you might find these two dresses familiar! The minidress was worn before by Sarah Jessica Parker in the Sex and the City movie in 2008. The dress on the right was designed by John Galliano for Gwen Stefani when she married Gavin Rossdale in 2002.

At the exhibition, there was also display of Western and traditional wedding costumes worn by Singapore women of different ethnic groups. The traditional bridal attires for Chinese brides are the qun gua and cheongsam. They are still popular these days during Chinese weddings and many will choose to wear them during the traditional tea ceremonies.

And on to the outfit of the day! I got this dress probably five years back (gasp!) and this is the first time ever I'm wearing it out. Omg, do you ladies have such experiences of keeping clothes for the longest time and just waiting for that one day with a good reason to wear it out? Finally, the day has come! haha. I thought that this dress will be perfect for a day at the Wedding Dress exhibition.

Dress from Far East Plaza

Shoes from Romwe

Necklace from Ahlens

Bag from Topshop

Hey I hope all of you are doing great! I'll drop by to say hi soon!

Ft