And the bride wore … anything but white: celebs EmRata and Chloë Sevigny bucked wedding trends to bring a little colour to their big day – and now others are following suit
Here comes the bride, all dressed in white. Or at least, almost always dressed in white – so deeply steeped in tradition is the hue for this one important day. And yet, until Britain's Queen Victoria created a new trend with a white satin gown for her wedding to Prince Albert in 1840, brides mostly wore a variety of colours on their special day.
A dress from Danielle Frankel's X bridal collection. Photo: Handout
According to a 2018 survey in Brides magazine, around 83 per cent of brides choose to wear white – yet things may be shifting. Pinterest searches for 'unique wedding dress' are up 240 per cent year on year, while blush pink wedding dress searches are up 60 per cent. It must also be noted that in countries such as India and China, red is the traditional choice.
Advertisement
Plenty of brides have bucked the white dress trend over the years – and celebrities are particularly known for it. Take model
Emily Ratajkowski , who wore a mustard yellow Zara co-ord for her 2018 wedding to now ex-husband Sebastian Bear-McClard. Or Mandy Moore, in the same year, in her clouds of pale pink Rodarte tulle. Or, rewinding to 2003, Julianne Moore in lilac. And who could forget Victoria Beckham's
purple dress from 1999 – or its silver anniversary reprise in 2024?
Sophia Bush opted for a floral wedding dress from Monique Lhuillier. Photo: @sophiabush/Instagram
In keeping with Pinterest, pale pink is indeed a popular choice for the bride who doesn't want to wear white. It was worn by Beatrice Borromeo for her 2015 wedding to Pierre Casiraghi, currently eighth in the line of succession to the Monégasque throne; and Jessica Biel for her 2012 nuptials with Justin Timberlake – Valentino and Giambattista Valli, respectively. Meanwhile, Chloë Sevigny wore black for her 2020 wedding, and so did Sarah Jessica Parker in 1997. Another stand-out was actress Sophia Bush, who opted for a floral off-the-shoulder Monique Lhuillier dress for her big day in 2022.
Toni Matičevski says modern brides want more interesting textures and finishes. Photo: Handout
Pink is something that Australian fashion designer Toni Matičevski explored for his most recent bridal collection. He says that while most of his brides still want to wear white, they want interesting textures and finishes.
'This collection explores a soft pink sequin fabrication, to again challenge the traditional notions of what a modern bride can be. Why not shine and sparkle on your special day?' he says.
Mandy Moore got married in a custom pink tulle dress from Rodarte. Photo: @kellybrownweddings/Instagram
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
4 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Queen's Club tennis championships, Los Angeles protest: pictures of the week
From the Queen's Club tennis championships in London to humanitarian aid in Gaza, here are some pictures...
South China Morning Post
21 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
M+ museum showcases 20th century Cantonese art
The latest marquee exhibition to open at M+, Hong Kong's museum of contemporary visual culture , is 'Canton Modern: Art and Visual Culture, 1900s-1970s', a sweeping exploration of Guangdong province's artistic evolution and its enduring influence on Asian modernism . Debuting on June 28 and running until October 5, the show assembles more than 200 works from institutional and private collections, many of which have never before been displayed publicly, to trace the interplay between Cantonese creativity and the sociopolitical currents of the 20th century. Known throughout much of Chinese history as part of the Lingnan region, Guangdong witnessed a shift from the restrained aesthetics of classical ink painting as artists confronted the rapid societal changes of the time. Pioneers such as Gao Jianfu , whose 1932 masterpiece Flying in the Rain reimagined traditional bird-and-flower motifs through dynamic movement and emotional intensity, epitomised this shift. Flying in the Rain (1932) by Gao Jianfu. Photo: courtesy Art Museum, CUHK Art mirrored the region's position as both a cradle of revolutionary thought – Sun Yat-sen's 1911 uprising originated in Guangdong – and a laboratory for artistic experimentation. As printmakers, photographers and cartoonists, these creators used mass media to document social upheaval, from the Japanese occupation to post-war reconstruction, creating a visual vocabulary that balanced regional pride with a national consciousness. Cantonese artists mastered the art of going viral long before social media. The 1940 'Exhibition of Guangdong Cultural Heritage' showcased woodblock prints and political cartoons that circulated through clandestine networks, amplifying leftist ideologies during the second Sino-Japanese war. Liao Bingxiong's satirical sketches, for example, skewered wartime corruption while Yau Leung's street photography captured Hong Kong's post-1949 identity crisis – caught between British colonialism and Communist influence from north of the border. As M+ curator Tina Pang Yee-wan notes, the works of these creators 'takes us back in time as witnesses to the formation of our image-driven world'. Mother and Child in the Rain (1932) by Fang Rending. Photo: courtesy MK Lau Collection The exhibition's second act examines how artists negotiated shifting gender norms amid revolution and reconstruction. Wong Siu-ling's 1941 oil painting Sewing for You subverted traditional guixiu (gentlewoman) tropes by portraying a woman as an agent of wartime resilience. After the formation of the Chinese Communist state in 1949, socialist realism co-opted this imagery, transforming women into symbols of state vitality.
South China Morning Post
a day ago
- South China Morning Post
Russian pianist Mikhail Pletnev plays subdued Beethoven and colourful Grieg in Hong Kong
The secret to a good story is, as they say, in the telling. Legendary Russian pianist Mikhail Pletnev wasted no time telling his tale to a packed audience in Hong Kong on June 17, launching into the Shigeru Kawai grand piano the very second he sat down. His recital was made up of two clearly opposed halves. The first saw his subdued yet thoughtful expressions of pathos and beauty in two of Beethoven's pillar sonatas, while a vivid depiction of Nordic nostalgia in a selection of Grieg's Lyric Pieces came after the intermission. The multifaceted musician-composer, whose distinguished international career began when he won first prize in the 1978 Tchaikovsky Competition, showed he had some real doozies up his sleeves despite exercising considerable emotional restraint in the first piece, Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8, the 'Pathétique'. Indeed, those expecting more outward expressions of the dramatic, agitated aspects of the music may have felt like they showed up at the wrong wedding. Expressions of pathos in the Grave introduction were more introspective in his hands, and any showy displays in the ensuing Allegro di molto con brio were equally shunned.
