Talk:Wedding dress of Queen Victoria

Meaning of the color
The association of the dress' color with innocence or childhood came later (and the beliefs about virginity stem from this "innocence", i.e., sexual innocence). High-quality sociological and historical sources indicate that at the time Victoria made her choice, white dresses—and particularly white lace dresses like this one—were a form of conspicuous consumption rather than a desire to evoke child-like innocence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:14, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Photos not of wedding dress
These photos are not of Victoria in her wedding dress. For one thing, photography was in its infancy and the earliest known photograph of her dates from 1845. The two photos shown here are of Victoria (and Albert) in court dress taken by Roger Fenton on 11 May 1854:

http://royalcollection.org.uk/microsites/royalweddings/object.asp?row=21&exhibs=WedQVPA&item=22

http://royalcollection.org.uk/eGallery/object.asp?searchText=2906513&x=0&y=0&object=2906513

It is sometimes claimed that this photo was taken "years later in her wedding dress" because she loved it so much, but it is court dress. She did, however, love the hand-made lace of the dress so much that she re-used it over and over, and it can be seen in some of her Jubilee portraits.

As for the white wedding dress, Victoria chose to wear court dress (which is white) for her wedding. Previous royal brides wore cloth of gold or silver. Victoria's dress (and several others) are being conserved and put on display at Kensington Palace:

http://www.hrp.org.uk/learninganddiscovery/discoverthehistoricroyalpalaces/royal-wedding-dresses.aspx

http://www.hrp.org.uk/NewsAndMedia/kpresources/Historicweddingdressesgiventheroyaltreatment.aspx

http://www.hrp.org.uk/MediaPlayer/ViewPlaylist.aspx?PlaylistId=125

There is at least one painted portrait of Victoria in her wedding dress, by Winterhalter in 1847 as an anniversary gift for Albert. The 1842 portrait is sometimes identified as Victoria in her wedding dress, and the dress looks similar, but the official description at the Royal Collection does not specify that it is the wedding dress. The Royal Collection also includes some other prints, paintings, and objects from this wedding.

http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/eGallery/searchResults.asp?searchText=+&radioAll=0&title=queen+victoria&rccode=&makerName=winterhalter&category=&collector=&startYear=1839&endYear=1850&pagesize=20&imgbuttonsearch=

http://royalcollection.org.uk/microsites/royalweddings/

Finally, there are some great images here, but all the info is not necessarily accurate (e.g., it claims that the 1854 court dress photograph is the wedding dress):

http://thedreamstress.com/2011/04/queen-victorias-wedding-dress-the-one-that-started-it-all/

Laura1822 (talk) 22:11, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Objection to DYK!
 * I find it almost inconceivable that the writers of this article have pushed this forward to a DYK on the Main Page without investigating the obvious errors that have been pointed out and so well illustrated by Laura1822 (talk)!
 * Whatismore, many of the recent edits are in very poor English with one sentence about the "period style..." being possitively garbled, with the writer clearly having something in mind but no real understanding of the words. Someone with good English should have done a bit of a check on this before it went to front page... I'm not talking about a Good Article review, but basic readability.
 * Along with Laura1822, I' telling that this is a court dress, and does not answer to the description of a "simple pleated skirt with a Honiton lace flounce". There is no sign of the flounce in this picture. The dress is richly adorned with coloured (they are darker in tone) artificial flowers. It might be the same dress with the flounce removed and different trim, but it certainly doesn't represent her appearance on her wedding day.

Amandajm (talk) 07:56, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Look, if you have a problem with an article, fix it!!!! There is no use moaning about it here give that neither I or Nvvchar are watching this page and had clearly not seen Laura's post. Laura should have taken the initiative to remove the photos on May 2 herself. This is what wikipedia is about, people more knowledgeable fix errors and build on what has been started. If you have a problem with the quality of writing, improve it!! Plain and simple... ♦ Dr. Blofeld  10:32, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I had a problem with the page, and I fixed it, as soon as the problem became apparent, which was when it appeared on the front page.
 * However, you were informed (by Laura) of the problem five days earlier, on this page, which as a writers of an article being put up for DYK, one would hopefully imagine you and Nvvchar were watching.
 * Your manner of addressing me :"Look, ....., fix it!!!!" is unwarrantedly aggressive and unpleasant. It's your problem you didn't watch the article, that you didn't take up on Laura's informed advice, and that it went to Front Page with significant errors in it. Don't be rude to me.
 * Amandajm (talk) 13:54, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

White as a color of mourning
I've removed the claim that white was a color of mourning. This distinctly dubious claim is sourced to a blog at a newspaper. The blog cites as its source a book printed almost 100 years ago. That book gives exactly one example of white being used as a color of mourning—in 1393 (447 years before Victoria's wedding), in France (a completely different country), and only during one specific funeral for an exiled monarch (a very unusual situation). The same underlying source gives many examples of black being used as the primary color of mourning during the Middle Ages (which ended in the 15th century, and is therefore irrelevant to the choice Victoria made in the middle of the 19th century).

Although "white mourning" was the primary color for deep mourning during the Middle ages, it had long been the normal color for normal children's clothing (because it didn't fade when washed), and by the 19th century, it was the normal color for young women and among adults was sometimes used as a color of half-mourning (along with gray and violet). Black was the primary color of mourning in the 19th century, and even in the 18th century. Consider, for example, this declaration of public mourning in the London Post of 1702: "Yesterday an Order was published, by Her Majesty’s Royal Pleasure, That all persons, upon the death of His Late Majesty King William, do put themselves into the deepest mourning that may be, on Sunday next: And that for the incouragement of our English lutestring and a-la-mode manufacture, hatbands of black English a-la-mode, cover’d with crape, will be allow’d as full and proper mourning, &c." The possibility of wearing white for primary mourning isn't even mentioned; the practice had died out in England more than a century before Victoria's birth.

Victoria's choice of color was surprising, but only because royal weddings had previously involved cloth of gold, purple, red, and other expensive colors, not because it was associated with mourning. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Edits, explaining pic removal, comments on references.
I've removed this file from the article during the rewrite, but thought I should explain my reasoning here - although the file DOES say "Queen Victoria wedding dress", it isn't the dress. Her wedding dress is well-documented (not least by the fact it has actually survived) as plain white satin, whilst the dress in the photograph is an all-over richly patterned fabric - the link used as reference went to another photograph of the wedding reenactments here - which actually shows a photo of Victoria in a completely different dress. I realise to a lot of people all big white fluffy dresses probably look the same, but trust me, they're all different, just ask any Bridezilla. ;) I've also removed and replaced a lot of the original references, which were for books like this and this - far from the most sterling or reputable sources for references, especially for a subject that has been widely documented. I apologise if I have stepped on anyone's toes here, but accuracy and verifiability is more important than promoting what appears to be a self-published book without even a preview to verify it contains supporting info.

The reference for the reenactments was: - but I would want to see something more reliable and authoritative than this, because newspapers tend not to be reliable when it comes to things like this. The Royal Collection list the photograph here - with a question mark beside "wedding dress". If it was THE wedding dress, they would say so. The other photograph, used on the Telegraph site, is described by the Royal Collection as "court dress"- no mention of it being reenactment and a question mark by "wedding dress". A later addition of text is adapted from a recent publication about the love between Victoria and Albert, so if it was a wedding reenactment I'm sure it would have been said so clearly. So I don't think it is appropriate to claim without definitive sources that they re-enacted their wedding in 1854 (or whenever) - regardless of what it LOOKS like to a journalist. Mabalu (talk) 12:36, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * What you're calling "richly patterned fabric" looks like lace to me, and it doesn't actually look any different from the drawing you've preferred: same neckline, same sleeves, same waistline.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:15, 10 June 2013 (UTC)


 * If it was lace, there would be signs of the net ground on which the lace was worked. If this were lace, it would have to be an all-over machine-made lace fabric (which wasn't yet technologically possible) to be so regular and repeating in pattern, and to run up into the skirt gathers/folds/drapery like that. The pattern is a brocade/damask design, not a lace design - probably Jacquard-woven. Plus, given the high value of hand-made lace and the esteem in which it was held, it would not be dragged around on a train, not even by queens. The trimming around the hem shows bows, puffy tulle stuff, flowers - totally different to a hanging lace flounce. The sleeves/neckline/waistline were a standard cut for the period, I could show you hundreds if not thousands of images of dresses from the period with exactly the same low-cut neckline and similar sleeves, so that doesn't really work as an argument. For photographs of the actual surviving dress, see http://www.hrp.org.uk/MediaPlayer/ViewPlaylist.aspx?PlaylistId=125 Mabalu (talk) 09:23, 10 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Your personal analysis would be a WP:NOR problem even if it were correct, but I honestly don't think that it's correct.
 * I see no reason why the lace in that portrait must have been machine-made. Regularity of design was proof that you were good at it.  This idea that you needed to introduce deliberate unevenness so that people can tell you're not a machine is very modern.
 * The net ground would not necessarily be visible in a low-resolution scan of a very old photograph.
 * The drawing you've added (which I like) clearly shows that she's wearing lace on the front of her dress (just like the portrait), but this modern image of the dress contains no such lace. The reason for this is tolerably obvious:  most of the time, lace was not part of the dress, but was worn as an overlay.  So the fact that the old photo differs from the modern photo of the incomplete outfit is irrelevant, especially since the photo matches up with the contemporaneous drawing.
 * I'm not seeing any bows on the hem of the dress. The drawing clearly shows that she is wearing as well as carrying flowers.  Adding or removing flowers doesn't change the identity of the dress, even if we assume that it shows flowers pinned on rather than just a lighting artifact (the same lighting that makes the back of the train have some equally dark, vaguely flower-shaped spots).
 * The drawing shows that she's clearly trailing something around behind her. It is still common to carry a train, though, and there's no reason to assume that having a long train means that she had to be trailing it around in the dirt.
 * Overall, I'm not finding your reasoning at all convincing. Additionally, while I prefer the drawing (as being clearer), I believe that there is value in posting this image specifically as information about the reënactment.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:30, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
 * But who says there was a reenactment? The only sources that say so appear to be newspapers. I checked specifically and none of the books/biographies/publications on Victoria mention anything about her reenacting the wedding, other than that in 1847, she did have her portrait painted (ie, not a photograph) as an anniversary present for Albert showing her in her wedding dress. That is documented. I can't find a single published source in any of the V&A biographies to say that there was a re-enactment. The Royal Collections database doesn't say so, and they recently did a MAJOR exhibition about Victoria and Albert focusing on the relationship and the love between them - all the romantic gifts between them, etc. At that point, the catalogue record for the alleged "reenactment" photograph was updated to state that the clothes in it were Court dress and that V&A had just come from a Royal Court - specifically making it clear it is not the weddding dress. I think the curator of the exhibition (which would have taken years to research) would certainly have made a point to say so if there was any evidence to support the reenactment claim or that it was the wedding dress. From the link above:
 * "Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are wearing court dress, having just attended a Drawing Room, a formal ceremony at St James’s Palace in which people were presented to the Queen. This image, one of a set of at least six, is the first photograph of the Queen as a reigning monarch rather than as wife or mother. Text adapted from Victoria & Albert: Art & Love, London, 2010"
 * I think that is a pretty clear, bald statement from the Royal Collection that the photograph is NOT a wedding reenactment photograph - it shows them in a Royal capacity, and it is stated categorically that it is the first photograph to show her as a monarch RATHER than as a wife or mother. I will admit that I was mistaken in an earlier statement, where I said they are not the same dress in the two photographs - I now realise that both photographs show the same dress.
 * Also, you said about the lace missing from the surviving dress. In the article it's stated with citations how Victoria reused the lace multiple times on other dresses, and that the lace survives separately from the dress and is now too fragile to move from storage. There really is no WP:OR going on here - I'm going by what the Royal Collection curator of the exhibition dedicated to Victoria and Albert's relationship has said, what appears on the Royal Collection official database, etc. Whoever originally identified these photographs as wedding reenactments is the person who did original research. Mabalu (talk) 22:33, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Aha. "Mistaken for a wedding photograph". Explicit refutation from the Royal Collection, no less. I think that pretty much closes this debate, although there's certainly a case for mentioning it in the article, given that the mistake is so enduring. Mabalu (talk) 09:55, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I've never seen any good reason to believe that her wedding dress didn't meet the rules of the day for court dress. Dresses were normally worn again, even wedding dresses, and not just the lace.  We have no particular reason to believe that Victoria's wedding dress was never worn again (although I'd not be surprised if it no longer fit after 15 years of marriage and babies).
 * Your assertion that the dress above shows colored jacquard fabric rather than lace is certainly an OR violation. The "colored fabric" looks exactly like what you accept as being lace in the picture now showing in the article.
 * I don't mean to come across as being super-critical, because you've done some great work and I'm very happy with the way this is turning out now, but I think you need to be more cautious about trying to interpret the old photographs yourself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:33, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Maybe technically it is OR, but at the same time, if you asked a textile expert (and even if I say so myself, I do know quite a lot about fabric IDs...) they would say that the fabric could not realistically be lace. The way lace was treated at the time, particularly handmade lace, was with great respect and, as the V&A Museum say about a similar (but later) dress also trimmed with Honiton lace, "It was considered unlikely that having spent a large sum on the Honiton lace, it would have been desirable for it to drag on the ground." Looking at court trains too, they appear to largely have been made of substantial fabrics. I HAVE found a picture that would seem to support your argument here, sixth photo down, which definitely shows a lace train mounted on a darker base fabric so it would not have touched the ground directly - however, lace patterns and silk-weaving patterns are very different, and to my eye, the fabric of Queen Victoria's Court train shows a repetitive, mechanical pattern that only mechanized production (whether Jacquard or manually loom-woven) could have achieved, while her daughter's lace train has a richer, fuller design, and a distinct border to finish the edges of the lace. Mabalu (talk) 10:45, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The leap between "possible to drag on the ground" and "actually allowed to drag on the ground" is pretty substantial. What we see is something that was placed on the ground while the wearer was holding stock-still for a photo.  That doesn't mean that it was allowed to touch the ground when she was walking.  Modern brides might not think their lace veils are quite as expensive, but those with long ones don't let them drag around on the ground to get torn, dirty, and yanked off their heads when someone accidentally steps on them, either.  We might not all have an army of pages to carry our trains, but we do all know how to loop long lace over an arm to keep it safe.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 09:20, 20 June 2013 (UTC)