The Wedding Dress: 200 Years Of Wedding Fashion

This exhibition at the National Museum is like a nightmare. No, no, that's not accurate; my nightmares are way more exciting than this. They never involve pretty dresses, always leather and jeans. Guns, swords and bombs, optional. You know I don't share the enthusiasm for weddings or any sort of fascination for wedding dresses. But I was curious to see how fashion reflected to social trends of the era, and importantly, the social standing of women from then till now.

I stared at the Victorian wedding corset in absolute horror. This one is made by Edwin Izod, who in the late 1860s, developed "a steam-moulding technique to improve his corsets' shape, performance and comfort". Dear lawwwd. What is up with women of the olden days and their tiny waists???! Did you see the previous exhibition on cheongsams and read about the 21-inch-waist? That was simply mind-boggling. How can they be so slim and so tiny?

Well, we all know that the white wedding dress didn't come into popularity and slide into the dreams of all brides till 1840. It's like...diamonds, I guess. The diamond solitaire is really a result of successful marketing. Whenever I buy a diamond, I know I'm not gaining an asset. The one thing I did like- the shoes of the late 18th to 19th century. At least the shoes of the 1800s looked comfortable. Almost flat like ballet shoes, otherwise, they had low wide heels which guaranteed comfort underneath those layers of tulle, taffeta, silk and lace.

It's a small-ish collection on loan from London's Victoria and Albert Museum. It's kinda nice that at the space before one enters the gallery, the curators have also displayed traditional ethnic wedding dresses used in Singapore in the recent past, as well as the western influenced white wedding dresses we know today. As we stared at the information board which included photos of the bridal couples in their wedding finery, we couldn't help but exclaim that they were just children...teenagers getting married. *shudder* Times were truly different then.