Monday 28 January 2013

Traditional Wedding Dresses

Source; Google.com.pk
Traditional Wedding Dresses Biography
The white wedding dress is still the most popular choice of even the most modern of brides.
The focal point of every wedding – even the most casual – is the dress.
Most feminists manage to turn a blind eye to the entrenched patriarchy behind most wedding rites. Even after decades of changing attitudes, the traditional long white gown symbolizing virginity is still the most popular choice of modern brides, by far. While early Roman brides wore white robes as a tribute to Hymen, the god of marriage and fertility, the white wedding dress is in fact a relatively recent phenomenon.
For medieval brides blue was the color of purity, not white. The wedded couple would wear blue ribbons, which evolved into our “something blue” tradition today. For centuries afterwards, brides wore bright colored wedding dresses to symbolize their happiness. Depending on their status and position, they’d incorporate expensive fabrics like fur, velvet or silk. White was considered the traditional color of mourning and therefore the last choice for a wedding dress.
The traditional white wedding dress symbolizes purity and chastity, two virtues a woman about to get married was supposed to have in the past. The bridal custom of wearing white started in the XVI century but it was given a boost when Queen Victoria decided to wear a white wedding gown instead of the silver dress royal brides used to wear at that time. Another monarch, Mary Queen of Scots, had worn white before when she married François II of France. However, her choice did not become popular then since white was the official colour of mourning in France at the time. It is believed Mary had chosen white since she was very fond of that colour and her white wedding dress surely must have highlighted her bright auburn hair and her hazel-brown eyes.
Prior to the Victorian era, a bride was married in any colour except black (the colour of mourning) or red (which was connected with prostitutes).

Western culture
Weddings performed during and immediately following the Middle Ages were often more than just a union between two people. They could be a union between two families, two businesses or even two countries. Many weddings were more a matter of politics than love, particularly among the nobility and the higher social classes. Brides were therefore expected to dress in a manner that cast their families in the most favorable light and befitted their social status, for they were not representing only themselves during the ceremony. Brides from wealthy families often wore rich colors and exclusive fabrics. It was common to see them wearing bold colors and layers of furs, velvet and silk. Brides dressed in the height of current fashion, with the richest materials money could buy. The poorest of brides wore their best church dress on their wedding day. The amount and the price of material a wedding dress contained was a reflection of the bride's social standing and indicated the extent of the family's wealth to wedding guests.

The first documented instance of a princess who wore a white wedding gown for a royal wedding ceremony is that of Philippa of England, who wore a tunic with a cloak in white silk bordered with grey squirrel and ermine) in 1406.;[1] Mary, Queen of Scots, wore a white wedding gown in 1559 when she married her first husband, Francis Dauphin of France because it was her favorite color, although white was then the color of mourning for French Queens.
This was not a widespread trend, however: prior to the Victorian era, a bride was married in any color, black being especially popular in Scandinavia.[2]
White became a popular option in 1840, after the marriage of Queen Victoria to Albert of Saxe-Coburg, where Victoria wore a white gown to incorporate some lace she prized. The official wedding portrait photograph was widely published, and many brides opted for white in accordance with the Queen's choice.[3]
Even after that, for a period, wedding dresses were adapted to the styles of the day. For example, in the 1920s, they were typically short in the front with a longer train in the back and were worn with cloche-style wedding veils. This tendency to follow current fashions continued until the late 1960s, when it became popular to revert to long, full-skirted designs reminiscent of the Victorian era.
Today, Western wedding dresses are usually white[4] though "wedding white" includes shades such as eggshell, ecru and ivory.
Later, many people assumed that the color white was intended to symbolize virginity, though this was not the original intention: it was the color blue that was connected to purity, piety, faithfulness, and the Virgin Mary


 Traditional Wedding Dresses 
 Traditional Wedding Dresses
Traditional Wedding Dresses 
Traditional Wedding Dresses 
Traditional Wedding Dresses 
Traditional Wedding Dresses 
Traditional Wedding Dresses 
Traditional Wedding Dresses
Traditional Wedding Dresses
 Traditional Wedding Dresses
Traditional Wedding Dresses




No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...