FABRIC OF LIFE And the bride wore white

Queen Victoria's wedding dress set a new trend for white gowns and was to have a lasting influence in the face of changing fashions, finds Celia Rufey

- Celia Rufey

Oh! This was the happiest day of my life!' wrote Queen Victoria in her journal, describing her wedding on 10th February 1840. Beyond her joy at marrying Prince Albert, the colour of Victoria's wedding dress was a historic moment for bridal wear. I wore a white satin gown, with a very deep flounce of Honiton lace,' she wrote. Both the white silk-satin woven in Spitalfields, and the handworked Honiton lace, pointed to the Queen's interest in supporting homegrown skills and manufacture. The public greeted her white dress with surprise, then enthusiasm, though some criticised its style as too simple for a queen. The greater surprise is how that white dress set in motion an enduring trend.

Historians quote only two notable white weddings in earlier centuries. The first describes Princess Philippa, daughter of King Henry IV, wearing a white tunic and cloak edged with ermine and squirrel fur when she married Eric of Pomerania in 1406. White was Mary Queen of Scots' favourite colour, but a white gown for her first marriage to French dauphin Francis in 1558 must-have raised an eyebrow, as white was associated with mourning in France; prescient, perhaps, as Francis died in 1560.