Pearls have been a classic and there is no denying that they will be even after a decade. The pearl trend became the top one in 2023 and continues to do so in 2024.
Eddie and Hannah Redmayne at the 2023 Met Gala, wearing Alexander McQueen
Eddie wears a custom McQueen tuxedo jacket featuring a pearl brooch and draped chain embroidery. Worn with two-pleat wide leg trousers, an ivory shirt and a black tie.
Hannah wears a McQueen SS12 dress featuring a draped pearl-embroidered bodice and a scalloped skirt in ivory silk. She carries a McQueen Knuckle Clutch bag with crystal embroidery.
Blue for a Wedding: An 1872 Dress at the Grand Rapids Public Museum
This blue silk dress was offered up in the Fashion and Nature exhibition to point out yet another natural resource that was used for fashion: mother of pearl. You can see in the mannequin’s hands one such shell punched through with holes, each hole having been made into a button. Before plastic, mother of pearl was an easily found and satisfyingly decorative way to make buttons. And you can find all sorts of vintage mother of pearl in antique stores and online.
This was a wedding dress which tells you that not everyone married in white at the time. Although you will notice the touches of white lace at the collar and at the edges of the wide sleeves. These both drew attention to the face and hands and showed off a bit of luxury. Of course, the rich silk of the dress shows off luxury as well.
This dress offers such typical elements of Victorian women’s clothing: the tight bodice through the waist, the large and long flared skirt, and multiple kinds of decorative embellishment: including ribbon, fringe, and lace. The ribbon follows the cut of the dress and emphasizes the narrowness of the waist by swooping in from the shoulders along with the fringe. The ribbon also swoops around the sleeves and then around the overskirt as well along with the fringe. There is also a swirl of ribbon creating a little ornament on the sleeve just after the elbow. And, of course, do not forget the mother-of-pearl buttons shutting the dress. And this was far from the most ornamented of Victorian gowns. In fact, this is one of the simpler ones. They really liked to gussy up a dress in the mid to late 19th Century.
You can see it for yourself at Fashion and Nature running now at the Grand Rapids Public Museum: https://www.grpm.org/fashion-and-nature/