Dressing up a piece of family history

ANDREW GORRIE/Dominion Post

HISTORY: Curator Julia Waite and the wedding dress that Georgina Dobson's great-great-grandmother Anne Whithair brought with her from Britain in 1875. Seven brides have worn the dress since Anne did.

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It is more than 130 years old, smells of mothballs and tends to bring the rain – but at least eight women have walked down the aisle in it.

The antique French silk hooped wedding dress was worn by Anne Whithair after she came to Canterbury from Britain in 1875, but the family suspect it could have been worn by her mother.

Since then it has been passed down through the generations to her great-great-grandchildren and may yet be worn again.

The dress is one of 29 on display at the "I Do – 100 Years of Wedding Dresses" exhibition at Upper Hutt's Expressions Art Centre from today.

Georgina Dobson, 46, the dress's current guardian, said it had been worn by almost every woman in her family from her great-great-grandmother to her sister.

But at her own wedding, in 1996, she opted out.

"Those brides were in their 20s and they were so thin. I didn't get married in a church and there was no way I would have fitted it," she said.

"It's just an old dress. It's been on farms but it has been taken care of, just folded up and put away until the next generation come along."

The dress had brought bad weather on every wedding day it had featured at and the veil was lost after it got caught on a farm fence in 1961.

The last bride to wear the dress, Sarah Greenslade in 1995, said it was a great honour to carry on such a long-standing tradition. "It was really special, it was worn by my husband's mother [Sandra Denham].

"Nowadays, brides are allowed to be sexy but back then it was about being chaste."

Mrs Greenslade recalled her own mother washing the dress in cold tea – one of the few times it had ever been cleaned – and hoped her daughters might carry on the tradition.

Exhibition curator Julia Waite said the idea of a wedding dress exhibition came from the Upper Hutt public. Although sceptical at first, she was drawn in by the stories around the garments. "These items relate so intimately to the history of the period they come from. Everyone can relate to this because they get married. We've been in a recession and this is feel good."

From the antique to the modern, they include a scanty Depression-era dress made from cheap muslin, to an opulent golden number – complete with matching boots, candle and ring cushion – that won Wellington gown of the year in 1996.

One rare dress, from 1945, was made from Allied parachute silk and lace picked up by the groom's brother in Japan after the Hiroshima bombing. Since then it has been squashed into a preserve jar.

Another, with rust stains, is a mint green 1950s dress that was worn by a "retro" bride in 2007.

All of the dresses on display have photos of the bride's special day and document their stories.

The exhibition opens to the public from 10am today and runs until January 10. Admission is free.

- © Fairfax NZ News