About the Look

T his gown was worn by Queen Victoria of England at her wedding to Prince Albert in the year 1840. It garnered a great deal of press attention at the time, as the royal wedding was highly publicized.

The structured, eight-piece bodice features a wide, open neckline. The off-the-shoulder sleeves are short and puffed. The pointed waistline is deep v-shaped, resembling the basque shape. Both the neckline and sleeves were trimmed with lace. The floor-length skirt was very full, containing seven widths of fabric in forward-facing pleats. At her wedding ceremony, Victoria wore a satin train over six yards long, which twelve attendants carried down the aisle (Tobin, Pepper & Willes 32).

Though many contemporary accounts described her wedding ensemble, in her diary, Victoria described it herself:

“I wore a white satin gown with a very deep flounce of Honiton lace, imitation of old. I wore my Turkish diamond necklace and earrings, and Albert’s beautiful sapphire brooch.” (Esher 318)

The Queen adorned her skirt, 139 inches in circumference and 37-40 inches in depth, with an exquisite Honiton lace flounce. Due to its fragility, when exhibited, Queen Victoria’s wedding gown is displayed without the flounce (Staniland & Levey 2).

It is important to note that the gown was constructed only of British materials, purposefully patronizing industries that were in decline.

Q ueen Victoria’s wedding to Prince Albert in 1840 was as much of a public-relations event as it was a celebration of love. Victoria was completely smitten with her cousin Albert, to whom she proposed. After he accepted her proposal, she confided in her diary:

 “[T]o feel I was, and am, loved by such an Angel as Albert was too great delight to describe!” (Woodham-Smith 221)

The young couple’s love also was an ideal opportunity to improve the monarchy’s image. Leading up to this moment, the British monarchy was largely disconnected from the people and did not have a glowing reputation. The monarchy seized the moment by inviting the nation to participate in the heavily romanticized and publicized wedding – displaying Victoria as both Queen and wife for the first time.

Never before had there been such a public royal wedding, with the bride (and Queen) paraded through the streets in a shared, national celebration (Haynes).

The ceremony occurred on a rainy day, February 10th, 1840, in the Royal Chapel of St. James (Benson & Esher; Greenwood). The typically austere chapel had been transformed into a lavish and decorated scene suitable for great numbers of  royalty and nobility (see Fig. 10) (Greenwood). In her diary, Victoria asserted that it had been the happiest day of her life (Cavendish 8).

Victoria’s famously white gown was constructed with English Spitalfields silk, as a purposeful show of patriotism, as was the patronage of English lace-makers. Spitalfields, a district in London, became a notable British silk-manufacturing site in the late seventeenth century (The Illustrated Magazine of Art 342-43). A wave of French refugees in 1685 made the city’s silks even more prominent, as French silk weavers brought their knowledge with them. As a result, the Spitalfields silk trade had a very significant and unparalleled rise in the early eighteenth century. As Spitalfields silk became more luxurious, it became coveted and increasingly expensive and fashionable (Fig. 14).

However, that splendor came to an end with the introduction of the power-loom, which made silk-weaving a less specialized profession (Jones 71-96). By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Spitalfields was losing its monopoly on the silk trade (The Illustrated Magazine of Art 342-43).

Similarly, the English handmade lace trade was also in decline in the nineteenth century. In an effort to boost the traditional lace-making industry, the crown commissioned William Dyce to design the lace for the Queen’s wedding ensemble (Fig. 15) (Tobin, Pepper & Willes 33). The style of lace was referred to as Honiton, although Victoria’s lace was worked on in a nearby village called Beer. The commission of the Queen’s lace flounce employed two-hundred lacemakers, who were otherwise destitute (Mitchell 156).

Victoria treasured her lace flounce and veil, and continued to wear them to special occasions throughout her life (Staniland & Levey 11-14). She can be seen wearing both in figure 16 – a photograph of Victoria on the occasion of the 1893 wedding of future King George V, which was later used as her Diamond Jubilee portrait.

The bright white vision of Queen Victoria on the happiest day of her life is a stark contrast to what would be her dark sartorial future. Prince Albert passed away in 1861, and Victoria grieved for the remainder of her life. At the time, widows were expected to wear mourning dress for two or three years after their husbands’ passing, making a gradual transition from full to half-mourning. However, Victoria’s chronic depression and prolonged grief cast a forty-year shadow over her wardrobe. It was rumored that when the Queen passed away in 1901, she was buried in her wedding veil (Wackerl 56). In actuality, that is a myth – but the Queen may have been buried with a veil of embroidered mesh (Staniland & Levey 15).