Due to a recent article in the Washington Post's 'Local Living' section that touted PollySue's as a place to sell your vintage wedding gown, we have been innudated by gowns. The most interesting aspect of this was seeing that there was always 'the dress' for any era. Just as 'the dress' for the past ten years or so has been a strapless white satin ballgown (look at the weddings section of the paper for proof, or any bridal magazine) 'the dress' for each decade has a definitive look, varying only in the details or expensiveness of the fabric.
Our first wedding dress vendor came in with four gowns, each one a perfect example of its time period. The dress from the 1930's was a slinky bias cut satin with a high bustline and covered buttons up the front. A slight train completed the look-and was echoed in every wedding dress I have seen from the 1930's. Perhaps because this was a time of financial hardship the use of fabric was sparing, concentrating more on the cut and minimal frills (no lace, only same fabric frills around the high neck.)
The second dress, a Mad Men era gown from 1962, showed all the hallmarks of its time. Made of a stiff synthetic satin the dress had capped sleeves and a fitted lace embellished bodice with covered buttons down the back. It had a full belled skirt puffed out by a tulle underslip and it was a size zero-so small that only the most petite contemporary woman could wear it. THe early sixties was by far the most common era of gowns we have had come in- and 'the dress' is echoed in all of them- with only a difference in the details on the front skirt- some with bows and lace medallions, some with a slight pearl beading. The use of fabric was not as sparing as the 30's dress, but still less than lavish, concentrating more on a stiff structured look which I suppose those brides aspired to, the early sixties being the last years before the great changes of the late sixties(womans liberation, civil rights, the assasination of many influential political figures, the Vietnam War...the list goes on. )
The third dress I was shown skipped back ten years to 1952 and shows the period in sharp detail. A lavish use of material and a showy 'Princess' quality was 'he dress'for the fifties. A slim fitted bodice of tight mesh lace embroidered with exploding curlicues of lace and pearls. A sweetheart neck satin camisole showing through the lace. A skirt of yards and yards of fluffy pale pink tulle with a long train (that I got stuck in while steaming it-quite comical). This dress shows the exhuberance of the fifties-the wish to splash out with expensive fabric and intricate detail and spare no expense since the lean years of the Depression and the War were finally over and brides everywhere wanted to have their dream wedding with the house and picket fence at the other side. For most of the decade the dress remained the same-only getting a bit stiffer and more structured by the late fifties-but overall a classic 'princess' gown like that worn by Glinda the Good Witch in 'The Wizard of OZ'.
The last gown pulled out of it's blue garment bag was from 1989- a heavy satin and beaded dress studded with pearls on its fitted long sleeved bodice with a low cut u neckline. This dress was the only dress that fit me (an average size 12) and as I swept upstairs in it to show my coworkers they exclaimed 'That bow on the back is crazy!'. And it did have the charactaristic monster 80's bow flat on the backside underneath the row of satin buttons (which by this time were only for show-they concealed a easily moving zipper.) So the dress for the 80's was rich heavy satin, quite covered up but full of expensive details-embroidery, lace, pearls, beadwork. This reflected the times of glitz and excess, where the average person aspired to be a character from 'Dynasty' or the resplendent Princess Diana whose train would reach the entire length of the shop and half way across the street.
So, I have learned these things:
Each time has 'the dress'. The farther back you go ,the smaller the dress and the harder it is to get into (one dress had sixty covered buttons that took half an hour to fasten. ) And the number of gowns from divorced brides jumped as we got to the seventies alhough generally the dresses were from happy marriages that have stood the test of time.
In fact, some of the sweetest moments of this whole dress experience was meeting the couples who are still married after sixty years (one couple in particular still smiling at each other and looking as exhuberant now as they did in their wedding picture of 1949). I asked this couple what their secret was to a long marriage and they said 'Being able to have arguments'. Wow. Another couple bringing in an impossibly tiny short gown from 1960 telling me that no this was not the bride- this was a classmate and friend of the bride who reconnected with the groom after she died and eventually started dating (I saw them kissing on the street like teenagers!)
Please come in and see all of these beautiful gowns, learn their story, try them on and think of making them walk down the asile another time, breaking the strapless satin ballgown mold we are all so familiar with.
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