Wedding Gowns & Bridal Fashion

A wedding this summer will probably be a washout so, if you are hoping for a bit of sparkle, you might think that Buckingham Palace could present a better option: all the surviving frocks sported by the principal members of her wedding party, brought together along with a small selection of presents, a few bits of memorabilia and the odd snippet of grainy film.

It will, however, take more than the dusty gilding of the Ball Supper Room in which this exhibition is displayed to conjure memory’s golden glow. The young Princess Elizabeth did not want the sort of lavish spectacular that has launched a thousand bridezillas’ dreams. Alongside the savagely competitive nuptials familiar from Hello! magazine, the entire affair will no doubt seem decidedly understated. Princess Elizabeth, after all, was getting married in a time of postwar austerity. It was an era as depressing as our rain-sodden summer.

The gown of a woman better known for her devotion to duty than her dress sense can hardly compete with the great tulle confections whipped up by sickly Hollywood weddings. Nor did it have that twist of irony that can lend fashion its flair. Wedding dresses seldom do: they are about symbolism and sentiment rather than culture’s cutting edge. Norman Hartnell, who had been dressing smart young ladies exactly like their mummies for a decade or two, apparently found his inspiration in Botticelli’s Primavera, whose tendrilled flowers find a faint reflection in the embroidered patterns of more than 10,000 seed pearls that scroll the diaphanous veil. But the two surviving bridesmaid’s dresses, no doubt drawn from mothballed trunks, have turned the colour of old teeth with age.

Then there are the presents. Princess Elizabeth did not come from a family that had to buy its own furniture, let alone the sort of domestic accoutrements that feature on the John Lewis list. Of course, there is the usual selection of candlesticks, tea caddies, goblets and plates, but what do you buy for the woman who has everything?

Henry Channon, it seems, opted for something she could not possibly want: a cigarette case for a woman who never smoked. Mahatma Gandhi contributed a cotton shawl that he had made himself. Then there are the diamonds: rather more tasteful but also more dull than the grinning glitter-ball of Damien Hirst’s diamond-studded skull. The little behind-the-scenes glimpses might make the memories shine – the 500 tins of pineapple chunks sent as a present by the Governor of Queensland; the pages who race indecorously along Palace corridors; the corgi that slips surreptitiously from the royal coach – but it is the flaws in this show that leave their mark on the memory, not the fairytale.

Source: Times Online