The Wedding Dress: 300 Years of Bridal Fashions

By Edwina Ehrman

Publication date: August 2011
NZ RRP (incl. GST): $84.99
Extent: 208 pp
Illustrations: 185 full-colour images
Format: 310mm x 240mm
Binding: HB
ISBN: 978-1-877385-83-4

Order from Te Papa Press

This beautiful book explores the history and traditions of the wedding dress from 1700 to the present. There are wedding dresses from the Victoria and Albert Museum’s superb collection, and the royal wedding dress of 2011. These gowns, supported by a rich collection of photographs, letters, memoirs, and newspaper articles, illustrate how designers have re-invented the traditional white wedding dress, in particular, since it first became fashionable in the early 1800s.

This book – about beautiful gowns, the wedding industry, and the romance that surrounds it all – is an excellent accompaniment to Te Papa’s exhibition, Unveiled: 200 years of wedding fashion from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Featured designers:
Charles Frederick Worth
Norman Hartnell
Charles James
Zandra Rhodes
Vivienne Westwood
Vera Wang
Christian Lacroix
Lanvin
Jean Paul Gaultier
Stephen Jones
Philip Treacy

Wedding Dress sample pages (2.01 MB)

Reviews

‘This handsome hardback ... discusses the role of the wedding dress as a marker of economic circumstances, technological advances and the social mores of any given day.’

– Sunday Star Times, September 2011

‘The pictures are stunning, the layout elegant, the text well written; there's romance and hints of scandal but the focus is firmly on the frocks.’

– New Zealand House and Garden, November 2011

About the curator

Listen to an interview with Edwina Ehrman, the curator of Unveiled: 200 years of wedding fashion from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in which she talks about the inspiration behind this lavish exhibition.