Below is a reprint of my article published in the spring issue of SEASON magazine. I didn't want you to miss it since the gorgeous period fashions on the Downton Abbey television series inspired the popularity of “all things vintage” for modern weddings. (Scroll to page 60 if you want to see the original layout.) Enjoy!
...with love from Cornelia
The Wedding Season on Downton Abbey
To the
delight of Downton Abbey fans everywhere, we were invited to two family weddings this season. And since
the splendidly sumptuous costumes are the stars of this British period drama on
Masterpiece Theatre—the bridal gowns didn’t disappoint (even if one potential
bridegroom did!)
It’s post-war
1920 and the three aristocratic Crawley sisters dress in the stylish fashion of
the budding “modern woman.” The restrictive corsets are gone as are waistlines,
high-necks and sweeping hemlines. “It is unthinkable,” declared the era’s
innovative fashion designer Paul Poiret, “for the breasts to be sealed up in
solitary confinement in a fortress like the corset!”
So as a
woman’s figure was freed (with hair cut and crimped for the most daring), lighter
and more diaphanous fabrics became popular for a delicately draped silhouette. Since this is before the Jazz Age flapper girl, the Downton Abbey wedding fashion
is softly feminine and romantic, floaty
and full-length, even goddess-like. And
it followed Vogue’s directives of the
time: “No matter what hour the wedding is held, there must be no exaggerated
décolletage.” Both Ladies Mary and Edith’s elegant bridal gowns—modest, yes,
but oozing femininity—“offer a wealth of inspiration for modern brides hoping
to channel a hint of vintage glamour,” writes Elle UK magazine.
The “Will
they?/Won’t they?” relationship of “distant cousins” Lady Mary Crawley and
Matthew Crawley tugged at us through a dozen episodes, so their wedding to begin
the third season was the cat’s meow! Costume designer Caroline McCall had Downton
Abbey’s grand staircase in mind when creating Lady Mary’s column-shaped wedding
dress—gossamer layers of ivory-tinted silk and the most expensive costume ever
made for the show! She etched the gown’s lace overlay with tiny Swarovski
crystals and rice pearls to create a shimmeringly
mythical moment as the bride pauses on the sun-lit staircase just as her father
(and Carson, the devoted family
butler) look up to see her. “I wanted
her to twinkle in the morning light, so I also infused the lace with a delicate
silver thread to create a subtle iridescence. My goal was to make her look
really ethereal and romantic”…and to soften
the hard edges of Mary’s stern character.
The actress
playing Lady Mary, Michelle Dockery, said that she’d never been nor had ever portrayed
a bride before so she loved all the attention, even feeling a bit like royalty.
The royal vibe could have been from all the guarded secrecy around her gown; or
how it was reminiscent of the slender, silver lamé trimmed bridal dress worn by
Prince William’s great-grandmother in 1923; or while filming the wedding scene
at Oxfordshire’s village church, she stepped from her carriage to cheering
crowds, just like Kate!
Then there
was second-daughter Lady Edith’s Grecian-inspired wedding dress, a softly
draped asymmetrical confection in silk slipper-satin and chiffon. (My favorite,
although historically, a design a little ahead of its time.) Appliquéing vintage
petal shapes of intricate silver embroidery and crystals across her shoulders
and swirled at one hip, the costume designer wanted the more “awkward sister” to
shimmer in her own bridal spotlight—but the magic was not to last.
The two
sisters—instead of wearing the usual wedding choice of the period, a wreath or
crown of wax orange blossoms—shared a stunning 45-carat, old-cut diamond
Georgian tiara in a romantic floral motif (on loan to Masterpiece from “royal
jewellers” Bentley & Skinner.) And that long silk tulle veil worn by both
brides, so memorable in each sister’s wedding story, was another “pretend”
family heirloom. Since “Downton Abbey” is actually Highclere Castle, all the Crawley heritage we see on the
fictional program is “pretend,” but it doesn’t keep us from feeling part of the
family somehow—whether our place is “upstairs or downstairs”! ~
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