Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, March 1818.
“Bridal Dress.”
During the Regency years, weddings were typically held in the morning. Most middle-class brides simply wore their best day dress (usually a walking dress) and best bonnet to their weddings. But brides of the aristocracy often wore luxurious dresses of silver or gold. Those affluent upper class brides led the way in establishing more fancy evening-style dresses as bridal gowns. By 1816, British modistes, including Miss Macdonald who created this one, began showing elegant white dresses as bridal gowns. So most of the fashion prints we see of Regency brides, and there are very few of them, show white bridal dresses that could just as easily be worn as evening gowns.
The print is described in the magazine as follows:
“A low dress, composed of British net, and worn over a white satin slip: the dress is cur low and square round the bust; the bosom and back are ornamented with white satin points interspersed with pearl; the shoulder strap is finished with chenille. The waist is very short, the dress tight to the shape, and the back of a moderate breadth. Sleeve à la Francaise, made very short and full, and ornamented with ten or twelve narrow stripes of white satin placed bias round the arm. The skirt is finished at the bottom by a large rouleau of white satin, which is surmounted by four satin pipings, disposed in waves and interspersed with white roses. The front of the dress is so formed as to have the appearance of a drapery; it is ornamented with pipings, which terminate in a large bunch of white roses: the effect of this trimming is novel and elegant. The hair is dressed high behind, surmounted by a diadem of white roses; a band of pearl is placed across the forehead. The front hair is disposed in ringlets, which fall thickly over the temples as as to leave only a little of the forehead visible. Necklace, bracelets, armlets, and ear-rings, pearl. White leather gloves, and white spotted silk slippers.
“… We are indebted to the invention and taste of Miss Macdonald of 50, Molton-street, for both our dresses this month [including this one].”
