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A Gallery of Vintage 20th Century Wedding Gown Sewing Patterns

Posted on July 07, 2020

Darlings, in the interests of getting you to stop living in the here and now for at least a few minutes a day, we invite you to take a stroll through yesteryear, when a young middle-class white girl’s ultimate dream was supposed to be her wedding day; the culmination of years of appropriate femininity training which began around the time she first learned to walk.

Okay, yes. That was cynical of us. We don’t have too much of a point to make here except to note that today’s billion-dollar bridal industry is a far cry from the days of our mothers and grandmothers, when their mothers and grandmothers were the most likely candidates for constructing their bridal gowns. Not that bridal shops didn’t exist 60 years ago, but when the median age of first-time brides was much lower than it is now; when educational and career opportunities for women were a lot more restricted than they are now; when the idea of sinking a year’s salary into a wedding was absurd considering you could buy a home for the same amount; having your gown made by a female family member was way more common and made way more sense back in the days when a large percentage of middle-aged women had workable sewing skills based on years of family clothes-making. Tom’s grandmother made his mother’s wedding gown and Lorenzo’s aunt made his mother’s wedding gown. We’d bet most people who read this could say the same of their families. We realize, of course, that plenty of brides still have their gowns hand made and some of them even still utilize the skills of the older women in their families, but it’s a rarity these days.

The only other thing to note here is how much the dresses of the 1950s through the 1970s still look like viable and stylish wedding options today, whereas the ’80s gowns look perpetually dated.