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Vintage Weddings: One Hundred Years of Bridal Fashion and Style
Here comes the beautiful bride, in this followup to Marnie Fogg's popular Vintage Knitwear .
Today's bride wants a wedding dress that expresses her personal style while also reflecting a rich tradition. Nothing achieves that goal as gracefully as a vintage or replica wedding gown. Whether it's a dazzling beaded tunic that captures the jazzy energy of the roaring twenties or a glamorous Hollywood-inspired dress from the 1950s, it can shape the entire wedding. With more than 250 photographs, this stunning volume takes readers on a dazzling tour of the past hundred years of bridal fashion, detailing the periods, styles, iconic designers, noteworthy ceremonies, cultural influences, and key looks.
Today's bride wants a wedding dress that expresses her personal style while also reflecting a rich tradition. Nothing achieves that goal as gracefully as a vintage or replica wedding gown. Whether it's a dazzling beaded tunic that captures the jazzy energy of the roaring twenties or a glamorous Hollywood-inspired dress from the 1950s, it can shape the entire wedding. With more than 250 photographs, this stunning volume takes readers on a dazzling tour of the past hundred years of bridal fashion, detailing the periods, styles, iconic designers, noteworthy ceremonies, cultural influences, and key looks.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2011
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218 people want to read
About the author
Marnie Fogg
42 books8 followersMarnie Fogg is a media consultant in all aspects of the fashion industry. She has a Master’s Degree in Art and Design Advanced practice and theory. She has lectured in Visual Studies and the Culture of Fashion and the University of Nottingham.
She is the author of over 25 books on fashion and related subjects including: The Dress: 100 Ideas that Changed Fashion Forever, Vintage Handbags: Collecting and Wearing Designer Classics, Vintage Weddings, Vintage Fashion Illustration from Harper’s Bazarr 1930 - 1970, and a series of books “Vintage Patterns” that cover the decades 1920’s thru 1980’s.
She is the author of over 25 books on fashion and related subjects including: The Dress: 100 Ideas that Changed Fashion Forever, Vintage Handbags: Collecting and Wearing Designer Classics, Vintage Weddings, Vintage Fashion Illustration from Harper’s Bazarr 1930 - 1970, and a series of books “Vintage Patterns” that cover the decades 1920’s thru 1980’s.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 19, 2019
During our wedding planning period, I borrowed quite a few wedding related books from the library. This is the only one that I actually read at all. It's an interesting history of wedding fashion throughout the past century, with historical anecdotes and lovely pictures. It helped me start imagining what our wedding would be like and gave me context that disrupted the commercial "wedding narrative" that society was trying to convince us we were required to fulfill. The pictures were beautiful and (though this was very female focused) my fiancé loved the sections that went deeper into men's fashion.
September 1, 2019
[coffee table book] a very good book if you want to know more about the evolution of the wedding dress in the last 100 years
October 8, 2019
An absolutely gorgeous visual history of wedding dresses. It won't teach you the entire history of them, but just the photos alone should satisfy your every need!
April 25, 2022
Just covers the 20th century, but good information and some great pictures.
November 10, 2023
Very interesting, very informative, and I got to look at lots of beautiful (and some funny) wedding dresses.
September 29, 2024
Page 43, 54, 70, 104 (!), 184
March 22, 2025
A fabulous collection of wedding dress designs and styles, looking at them decade by decade, from 1900 to 2010.
October 22, 2012
I started off really liking this book. I found it interesting and full of information without being overwhelming. As I progressed in the book, obvious holes began to appear. Apparently to be of note, the dress had to be couture, from a major label (few of which I ever recognized), custom-made, or be part of a person of note's family. Often, a number of these would converge to be noted in this book, but only a fraction of them actually were depicted among the many, many sketches and photographs. Dresses would be described in great detail, but another dress displaying almost none of the features of the described dress would be featured.
It also reinforced European snobbism towards anyone else for me. Maybe I should clarify, I'm referring to culturally significant European countries such as England and France; Poland, Norway, and Germany need not apply. Anything outside of Western culture was also completely ignored. I fully understand that an undertaking like that would be ridiculous and if done, a total and complete tome would result. An acknowledgment that there are fashion centers other than Paris should be noted. More importantly, there should have been a note that these other cultures are equally important. I think this is why so many people from other places truly hate Western culture. There seems to be this misplaced self-importance. I seem to have gotten off on a rant that is only semi-related to this book.
Anyway- apparently Princess Di's wedding was Fogg's favorite wedding/dress as it was given the most space of any particular wedding and style. The 1990s and 2000s were balled together as if they were of the same trends. For a book published in 2011, there was enough time to have a separation of the two decades, or even a description of the trends. Instead, "the present" is broken down by designer and what they are known for. My favorite picture was of Renee Zellwegger's wedding. Yeah, that lasted an entire weekend. She would have been better off showing a typical Vegas Chapel dress, or a Reni fare getup. But I guess it falls in line with her showing Audrey Hepburn's dress that didn't even get worn for her first almost wedding.
Okay, truly Grace Kelly's dress was my favorite one in the book. My favorite wedding dress since I have begun to look at them is Kate Middleton's. It still remains to this day the only dress that has made me tear up a little.
I guess what could be fun is at the end; Fogg gives some suggestions as to how to have a decade-themed wedding. I have added a number of books on my look out for list. But other than that little, mini highlight, this book just could have been more for me. I'm assuming that the rights of many of the described but missing dresses could not be obtained, or worse, for some reason they just could not be found.
It also reinforced European snobbism towards anyone else for me. Maybe I should clarify, I'm referring to culturally significant European countries such as England and France; Poland, Norway, and Germany need not apply. Anything outside of Western culture was also completely ignored. I fully understand that an undertaking like that would be ridiculous and if done, a total and complete tome would result. An acknowledgment that there are fashion centers other than Paris should be noted. More importantly, there should have been a note that these other cultures are equally important. I think this is why so many people from other places truly hate Western culture. There seems to be this misplaced self-importance. I seem to have gotten off on a rant that is only semi-related to this book.
Anyway- apparently Princess Di's wedding was Fogg's favorite wedding/dress as it was given the most space of any particular wedding and style. The 1990s and 2000s were balled together as if they were of the same trends. For a book published in 2011, there was enough time to have a separation of the two decades, or even a description of the trends. Instead, "the present" is broken down by designer and what they are known for. My favorite picture was of Renee Zellwegger's wedding. Yeah, that lasted an entire weekend. She would have been better off showing a typical Vegas Chapel dress, or a Reni fare getup. But I guess it falls in line with her showing Audrey Hepburn's dress that didn't even get worn for her first almost wedding.
Okay, truly Grace Kelly's dress was my favorite one in the book. My favorite wedding dress since I have begun to look at them is Kate Middleton's. It still remains to this day the only dress that has made me tear up a little.
I guess what could be fun is at the end; Fogg gives some suggestions as to how to have a decade-themed wedding. I have added a number of books on my look out for list. But other than that little, mini highlight, this book just could have been more for me. I'm assuming that the rights of many of the described but missing dresses could not be obtained, or worse, for some reason they just could not be found.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews