In the 20th century, royal weddings became the meeting ground between contemporary fashions and royal tradition. As we have seen, Queen Victoria’s (1837‒1901) wedding in 1840 was an important moment in the history of royal weddings and many of the elements of her ceremony are now integral parts of modern royal weddings. In this article we will look at the wedding dresses of five modern royal women and how their choices linked the past with the present.
For Princess Elizabeth’s wedding to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten in 1947, the task of designing her dress was assigned to the British couturier Norman Hartnell. Hartnell was first introduced to the Royal Family by Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester in 1935, when he was assigned to create her wedding dress. After that he became a trusted designer for Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. At the time of Princess Elizabeth’s wedding, Britain was feeling the effects of the Second World War. Clothes were still rationed, which meant that the materials had to be purchased with ration coupons. These were donated to Princess Elizabeth by generous brides-to-be from across the country.
In keeping with 1940s fashion, the dress followed the so-called ‘princess’ style with a tailored bodice, high neckline and long sleeves. The skirt was heavily embroidered with crystals and 10,000 seed pearls in a floral design. The bride’s short silk veil was held in place by her grandmother Queen Mary’s diamond fringe tiara.
The wedding of Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones took place at Westminster Abbey on 6 May 1960. The design of the wedding dress was, once again, entrusted to Norman Hartnell. But instead of his characteristic rich embroideries, Margaret’s gown had very little embellishment. The focus was on the voluminous skirt – over 30 metres of plain silk organza. Its cut, cinched in at the waist with the full skirt, followed the 1950s New Look silhouette introduced by Christian Dior and popularised in England by Norman Hartnell. The wedding outfit was finished by a long veil of matching silk organza and the magnificent Poltimore Tiara.
When Lady Diana Spencer became engaged to Prince Charles, the level of anticipation was unprecedented. Nonetheless, details of the dress were kept secret from the press until the moment Diana stepped out of the carriage at St Paul’s Cathedral.
The gown was designed by the (then) couple Elizabeth and David Emanuel, and expressed the bride’s early taste for romantic styles. It had a wide full skirt, bouffant sleeves and long wide train attached at the waist and extending nearly eight metres behind the bride ‒ the longest wedding train in royal history. In keeping with tradition, it was made from British fabrics. The ivory taffeta was manufactured from Dorset silk, and the design included antique lace from Nottingham and the Irish Carrickmacross lace from the collection of Queen Mary.
Like that of his parents, the wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton in 2011 was eagerly awaited.
The dress design was assigned to Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen, and it hit the perfect balance between being fashionable and appropriate for a royal bride. The style shows the influence of both Victorian and mid-20th century periods, with demarcated waist and a full skirt extending to a three-metre long train. The traditional Cluny and Leavers lace was assembled by the Royal School of Needlework, who incorporated the national symbols of roses, thistles, shamrocks and daffodils. In order to keep the lace and thread pristine, needles were renewed every three hours and there was a strict regime of hand washing every 30 minutes. Even the embroiderers working on the lace did not know who had designed the dress.
The wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle on 19 May 2018 also captured the attention of millions across the globe.
The gown included all the elements expected from a royal wedding dress – white/ivory/cream fabric, veil, national emblems and a British designer. There was, however, an element of surprise in the selection of French fashion house Givenchy, even though its Artistic Director, Clare Waight Keller, is English-born and trained.
The pure lines and a lack of embellishment on the dress created a timeless elegance and simplicity. Its focus lay on the open bateau neckline and the five-metre long veil edged with the distinctive flora of each Commonwealth country – 53 in total. There was also Wintersweet - a flower found in the grounds of Kensington Palace - and bushels of wheat, symbolising love and charity. To hold the veil in place, the bride wore Queen Mary’s diamond bandeau tiara.
Today, royal weddings are highly popular events with speculation rife and public expectation rising from the moment the engagement is announced. The pressure on the chosen designer is immense: the dress needs to stand out in the grand interiors of the royal venue, incorporate national materials and emblems, conform to certain traditions without looking old fashioned, be regal and, finally, delight the millions of spectators across the world.
The Royal School of Needlework
hand embroidery has been integral to the decoration of royal and court clothes, from the animals and flowers on the Bacton altar cloth, to the stars on Henrietta Maria’s masque dress, the floral embellishment on the Georgian court suit and the gold and silverwork on Lord Boston’s coat.
The Duchess of Cambridge wedding dress was worked in the Royal School studio they were approached by Sarah Burton and the team from Alexander McQueen, they had been inspired by Carrickmacross lace, which is a very traditional Irish lace technique where fabric is applied to a net backing and stitched around. So what they did is cut motifs out of the lace with very fine scissors, very close to the edge, so that we would have single motifs. And these we would place on a net and pin them in place. the pattern had already been worked out by the team at Sarah Burton. And the pattern would be all the way along the edge of the veil and all over the panels on the dress and on her shoes, as well. And we would stitch around the outside of the lace motif, all of them a few millimetres apart. It was very precise stitching.
In 1953, the Royal School of Needlework embroidered the Queen's coronation robe. they were first presented with three different designs, and she finally chose one that was called wheat and olives. That means plenty and peaceful. the tricky part, the challenging part, is actually to cut it to the right length. So the gold sits on top of the velvet, hugs the padding, and sits on top of the velvet on the other side. If it's too short, you'll see your stitches. And if it's too long, it will sit up. And then any pressure on it, it will crack. This one is gimp. And this one has been used on here as a stem. And what you do is you untwist it slightly and then slip your needle in between the threads and actually stitch it down then tighten it up. And then your stitches are also invisible. They're underneath. And then we have spangles. these are used down the centre of this leaf, here, and also on this one, the turnover. So you've got the smooth pearl and then the spangles on the end. They're like a flat version of sequins. We're very lucky, because we have a piece of the original velvet used on the queen's coronation gold in our collection.
it's a beautiful sort of rich purple colour, quite unusual. It's a very narrow fabric, so we had to piece three pieces together to actually get the width for the coronation robe. And we also have in our collection a pincushion that was made out of offcuts of the velvet used on the coronation robe. it has a twist around the outside and gold tassels and emery powder inside. So it actually sharpens your needles and keeps them clean. And we also have a little butterfly brooch that was actually made out of offcuts from the Queen Mother's coronation robe.
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