From the romance of its evolution to the splendor of its design, the wedding dress is unlike any other garment, a talisman from a fantasy world, the manifestation of dreamscoming true. This book draws on wedding garments in the V&A's renowned collection along with photographs, letters, memoirs, and newspaper accounts to explore the history of the white wedding dress and the traditions that have developed around it from 1700 to today, when designers from Vera Wang to Vivienne Westwood continue to challenge the aesthetic. Paintings, drawings, and wedding photos depict queens, princesses, celebrities, and everyday women - including Kate Middleton - in their gowns. The text considers the dress in the context of the commercialization of weddings that began in the Victorian era. The Wedding Dress is not only about costume, but also about the cultivation of the image of the bride

• Silver and white, 1700-90
• The white wedding dress, 1790-1840: a working-class wedding
• Commercializing the white wedding, 1840-1914: too old for white
• Towards the modern, 1914-45: to wed in red
• Ready-to-wear, 1945-90: a civil wedding
• Choosing white, 1990s to the present