Tea at Trianon: An Heirloom Wedding Gown

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, November 7, 2019

An Heirloom Wedding Gown

From My Modern Met:

When it came to finding “something old” to wear to her wedding, Pennsylvania native Abigail Kingston didn’t have to look beyond her family tree. The 30-year-old bride-to-be knew she wanted to be married in her family’s special heirloom–a 120-year-old wedding dress that has been worn by 10 women in her family, including her own mother. The two-piece Victorian gown was first worn by Kingston’s great-great-grandmother in 1895, and has been passed down from family member to family member ever since. Kingston tracked down the dress, which was last donned in 1991, only to find that the garment had turned brown and was falling apart from over a century of use. She decided to turn to expert bridal designer Deborah LoPresti for help. After 200 painstaking hours of work–which included adding new sleeves, lightening the brown shade to a champagne color, and altering the silk and satin garment to fit Kingston’s tall, thin frame–the dress was finally restored to a beautiful state. (Read more.)