Key Words
silk; brocade; pattern
Questions to ask
Today a lot of wedding dresses are white. Do some research and find out why Victorian wedding dresses were not necessarily white.
Look at the shape of the dress. Do today’s dresses have different silhouettes to this? What are the reasons for this?
Do you consider hand-made clothing items like this wedding dress to be art objects, or fashion? Can clothes be both?
How this might inspire your work
Produce a sculpture based on elements of Victorian fashion, paying particular attention to the Tullie House wedding dress.
Look at the silhouette of the wedding dress, in particular the shape of the sleeves and the way in which the waist is drawn in. Make a series of sketches from individual parts of Victorian fashion, including the wedding dress. Think about how you would combine these to make a sculpture.
Using thick wire, create the main structure of your sculpture. Use thin wire to fill in the spaces between the thick wire of the main structure. You may also wish to use string and wools of differing thicknesses for winding and joining. This will make up the main frame of your sculpture.
Decorate pieces of card with paints, foils and inks. To add angular or curved shapes to your sculpture, cut out a variety of shapes from the decorated card. Hole-punch these shapes, and use thin wire to attach to the frame. You could also create interlocking shapes from the decorated card and attach these to the frame too.
Exploit the decorative potential of winding thin wire around thick wire. Tie textured pieces of fabric to the sculpture and thread beads and buttons onto the thin wire. Consider the use of lace on the wedding dress and think about how you may use pattern to decorate your sculpture.
Victorian wedding dress, 1856 1859, french grey silk taffeta.
This dress comprises of a separate bodice and skirt. The bodice has plain round neck with centre front hook and eye fastening with pagoda style sleeves trimmed with 2 rows of brocade and tassled trimming. Bodice tapers in at waist to a 'v' shape centre front, over each shoulder is a band of brocade and tassled trimming running continuously from a point at the centre back to the front resembling a shawl.
The skirt is full with 2 deep tiers of scalloped edged brocaded silk. The skirt would have been worn over a crinoline. Bradfield suggests that this style of dress dates from the late 1850s and includes a pointed bodice back and front, two coloured silk fringing, wide sleeves, pointed epaulettes, decorative and removable buttons, back-fastened skirts.
This dress was worn by Mrs Hardie for her wedding. She was the great grandmother to the donor's husband Mr Strong, city coroner of Carlisle.
Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, gift of Mrs Strong 1984
Image © Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery
Click here to view exhibitions designed for Secondary school students and their teachers.
Jonathan Jones: The late artist's unfinished replica of his childhood home, with its dark underground retreat, suggests parallels with his troubled life
Published on 16/05/2012
David Shariatmadari: A report by Riba suggests what we want from our homes – big, light-filled spaces – we just don't get. But in the current economic climate, what can architects do about it?
Published on 16/05/2012
Exhibition of images of Elizabeth II, which has already visited Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, arrives in capital
Published on 16/05/2012
Your comments