Acquired from Genny Waller.
This wedding dress was worn by the Hon. Margaret Georgina Curzon, also known as Daisy, at her marriage to Hardress John Waller on January 26th 1899.
Margaret Curzon was the younger sister of George Curzon, who had been appointed Viceroy of India the same January, and grandmother of Genny Waller, the previous owner of the dress. It was acquired together with the groom’s tie, an evening dress which was probably part of the trousseau, and a copy of the photograph of the bride and groom outside Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, the Curzon family seat.
The marriage was reported in both the local and national press on the day of the ceremony. The Pall Mall Gazette, an evening newspaper, described the bride as having worn ‘a very handsome gown of ivory-white satin, made with court train, and embroidered in a Louis XV bow design carried out in fine silver pailletes and diamonds. The bodice was arranged with a yoke of tucked white chiffon and a pretty trimming of orange blossom, while the collar and the long transparent sleeves were of lovely old lace, and she wore a coronet of orange blossom, a diamond pendant…and a pearl and diamond brooch. She carried a very lovely bouquet of white roses, stephanotis, orange blossom and lilies of the valley’.
The bodice (see Additional Images) is now too fragile to be mounted, and the sleeves have become detached. The tucked chiffon yoke and lace collar, mentioned above and visible in the wedding photograph, are missing, having probably disintegrated with age.
Captions to Additional Images:
A copy of the wedding photograph, taken outside the bride’s home Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
A label for the wedding dress written and dated by Margaret Waller (née Curzon)
The silk tie worn by the groom, Hardress John Waller, labelled ‘James Drew, 1, 2&3 Burlington Arcade, W.’ The base of the front of the tie has been roughly chopped off. This might relate to a custom in some parts of Europe of cutting the groom’s tie after the wedding ceremony
The lace sleeves of the wedding dress, lined with silk gauze, now detached.
