Antiquing

Antiques -> Textiles, Linens -> Lace, Crochet, Doilies

Wedding dresses are a big business today, but many people prefer the look of an antique wedding dress to the more modern gowns. Choosing a vintage dress is certainly one way to make your wedding unique, as it’s highly unlikely that any or your friends or peers will be getting married in the same or even remotely similar dress.

Why choose from a catalog or the racks of a bridal store when you can choose an antique wedding dress to help make your day special. The workmanship and details in an older dress can be amazing, while to get that level of detail today you’d spend hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars more for a dress. If you have an old-fashioned sensibility, an older dress can give your wedding a more vintage atmosphere and make you think of time past.

If you’re shopping for an antique wedding dress, a piece of good advice is not go too antique. While with most antiques, older is better, with wedding dresses or any kind of clothing, older dresses might be in a bad state of repair. Fabric does deteriorate and lose its shape over time, anything that might have been slightly stretchy before is probably only brittle now, thread will rot over the years, and sometimes older dresses can be on the verge of falling apart.

But an antique wedding dress, unlike simply an ordinary dress or pair of pants, has likely been worn little and handled far less than average clothing. The key is to be choosy, especially when dealing with very old dresses. If you’re looking at a dress made before 1900, you could be taking quite a bit of risk as it’s much more likely to be unable to hold up to wear. Silk chiffons from the 1920s are also, because of their style and fabrics, less likely to hold up over the years. If your heart is set on either of these, then simply be prepared that the cost to repair and restore them will be much higher than most other dresses.

Know how much you can spend on an antique wedding dress before you shop in vintage shops or online on eBay, and stick to your budget. Do figure in the cost of alterations and any restoration and repair that a seamstress might find necessary to keep the vintage dress together for you wedding. Cleaning should also be considered, as archival cleaning can sometimes cost more than you paid for the dress itself.

Don’t choose an antique wedding dress that’s in obvious visible need of repairs or has stains. While stain removal is much easier today, that stain has been on that fabric for decades making it much less likely it will come out completely, if at all.

And if you decide to purchase an antique wedding dress from an auction, measure yourself carefully to find the right dress. Sizes were different years ago than they are today, so the auction should give detailed measurements for the garment. If it doesn’t, ask for them before purchasing.

Originally posted 2008-11-01 05:00:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Antiques -> Textiles, Linens -> Lace, Crochet, Doilies

Many people today want to wear a vintage wedding dress when they get married. Vintage clothing in general has become hugely popular. You can purchase actually vintage clothing in various states of wear, vintage fabric which to make clothing from, or reproduction vintage clothing made from new fabric in old-fashioned styles and designs. A good place to find vintage clothing of all types, including wedding dresses, is eBay. The drawback to purchasing clothing from an online auction, though, is the inability to try the item on for a good fit before purchasing, and most clothing sellers don’t accept returns, especially if they’ve given detailed measurements in the auction to help people determine whether an item will fit or not.

If you decide to purchase a vintage wedding dress from an auction, read the measurements and any other available information. Unless you’ve measured yourself very recently, measure again just to be sure. When purchasing vintage clothing of any kind, you’ll want to ask the seller questions, whether you’re trying the item on in their shop or purchasing it online.

Even if you don’t want to purchase a vintage wedding dress online and instead want the convenience of trying it on first, you should search online for vintage items to learn more about the different styles and time periods available, and the general cost of items like the one you’re looking for. This can help you from paying far too much for a wedding dress, and help educate you about which styles were most popular during the era from which you’d like to find a dress.

A vintage wedding dress from the 1930s, for instance, is more likely to have detachable train than dresses from other eras, so the bride could wear the dress as an evening gown after the wedding. The sleeves were typically long and tapered, and often the satin gowns were buttoned down the back. Netting and frills became popular in the 1940s, as were hidden zippers and buttons and loops, rather than the long line of back-buttons. Tapered sleeves with the point extending over the top of the hand were also in vogue.

A vintage wedding dress from the 1950s is more likely to have extensive lacework and a long train, while the wedding dresses from the 1960s reflected the movement toward nature and simplicity, with dresses more often ankle-length, and even mini-skirt length.

When you decide which era you prefer in your vintage wedding dress, something else to consider is the state of the dress. Is it ready for you to wear down the aisle? (Or display, if you’re purchasing as purely a collector’s item?) Can it be altered? Some vintage dresses don’t lend themselves to alterations very well, because they were often made for one specific person, rather than purchased from a shop and altered as is common today. Also, look into the cost of cleaning your vintage wedding dress as the cost of archival cleaning could actually be more than you pay for the dress itself.

Originally posted 2008-10-23 05:00:03. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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