via @driesvannoten
Having a blushing bride close a couture show is one of fashion’s more dated traditions that has been falling by the wayside as it becomes less acceptable to publicly shame women for feminism and traditional weddings lose cultural significance. In the last round of couture shows, only a fraction of fashion houses chose to finish their collections with a ceremonious white gown. But when Dries Van Noten invited retired couturier Christian Lacroix to collaborate on his SS20 ready-to-wear collection and celebrate the vivid and fantastical history of ‘90s couture, they had to have a bride.
The tradition of a white dress is said to have started with Queen Victoria, who got married to Prince Albert in 1840 in white lace. While the snowy dresses were later taken to symbolise virginity, they gained popularity in the 1800s for being bougie – it meant that you could both afford to have a gown that you would only wear once and that you lived a luxurious enough lifestyle to keep light clothing clean. But it didn’t become a couture staple until the 1940s, often accompanied by the couturier as a sort of father/groom figure. Being a leisurely, rich virgin is probably still a great way to snag a man, which is why the custom has carried on into the bridal Pinterest boards of 2019, but its history in couture is a little less dogmatic, often subverting the garment by exposing the pageantry of weddings.
You could say the ‘fashion bride’ became less commercial in the ‘60s—Yves Saint Laurent sent a cocooned bridal look down the runway (which the Internet has since lovingly compared to a knitted condom) and has continued into the modern day with the late Karl Lagerfeld interpreting the look as a stoned swimsuit with a veiled swimming cap in his last couture collection earlier this year. Lacroix was known for his fantastical brides, notably sending down a gown in his final 2009 couture collection that seemed as though it could be painted onto a Mexican prayer candle, with the veil acting as an aureole.
As the Dries Van Noten collection was ready-to-wear, the bride was less avant garde than Lacroix’s haute couture creations, but she was still loaded with ruffles and feathers as the proud fathers walked her down the runway. If you look past some of the problematic parts of wedding dresses, for many women they are the most decadent garment they’ll ever wear as part of a production with flowers, music, and ceremony. In this sense, creating a “wedding gown” for haute couture is an invitation to elevate fashion in its highest form and create something even more inspired.