It’s silly, celebrity wedding time again and I wondered why anyone would spend the price of a small car on a dress to be worn for just one day.  Why would you do it? If the marriage goes wrong, and most of them do these days, you are never going to want to see that dress again and no one else will want an unlucky dress – Galliano or otherwise.

Queen Victoria started it off by wearing white for her wedding and started a fashion, which supposedly indicated the bride's virginity.  White also showed that you were wealthy and could afford a dress that would probably only be worn once.  In ancient Rome, it was a custom for the bride to wear a veil to disguise her from the evil spirits and to keep her safe. The bridesmaids were traditionally dressed as beautifully as the bride to confuse any evil spirits who may have been waiting to snatch the bride. For most women the dress was made at home or by a local dressmaker, or it was a hand-me-down remodeled.  By the 1890’s and the arrival of the department store, almost every woman could realise her dream of being married in a “new” wedding dress. As wedding dresses closely resembled the fashions of the time, only a little alteration and dye was needed for the dress to be worn again.

Coco Chanel was the one who officially introduced the short wedding dress in the 1920’s. It was a white knee length dress worn with a long train. This cemented white as the universal colour of the wedding dress.  Actress Grace Kelly’s marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco started the trend of celebrity weddings. Called "the wedding of the century" by the press, it is estimated that 30 million people watched the wedding on television.  Grace's wedding gown was a gift from the MGM Studio and designed by Helen Rose. It was a high-necked, long-sleeved gown with a billowing skirt made of twenty-five yards of silk taffeta, one hundred yards of silk net, tulle and 125-year-old Brussels lace. On her head, she wore a Juliet cap decorated with seed pearls, orange blossoms, and a veil of 90 yards of tulle. Now that is a wedding dress!

Various princesses, real and the Hollywood variety carried on the tradition and now everyone wants to spend a huge amount of money to be beautiful for the just one day. For some of us the whole thing is so ridiculous that we brazenly front up for the ceremony in our best jeans and the odd bit of lace. Of course, there was Muriel and the wonderful tag line of the movie, ‘she's not just getting married, she's getting even.’

For a modern take I consulted Very Wang on Wedding Dresses. This book costs a fortune and I managed to borrow a copy. It’s really boring, there are photos of American celebrities, all of whom have model good looks, yet it is about as interesting as the wedding of Kevin and Tiffany up the road. The thirty odd chapters list each requirement from little cushions to put the rings on to how much to tip the staff. Just who is exploiting who in all this? I particularly liked the section on underwear which suggested ‘an extra bra in case one is misplaced ‘– believe me I’ve misplaced husbands, but never a bra.

Everything comes down to the central focus on ‘the Dress’. This seems to give a special coded message to world about the taste and wealth of the bride and can make the fortune of an unknown designer. As the world waited for the Erica Baxter frock, and a million rip off merchants world wide waited to copy it, there is something profoundly sad about such a beautiful thing made with love and care by a seamstress, only to be worn once by a thoughtless airhead and then discarded in the back of the closet.

The Baxter dress when it was finally unveiled bore a strong resemblance to the illustrations in Alice in Wonderland. The flamenco-style dress was made by John Galliano for Christian Dior and involved more than 600 hours of hand-stitching and cost around $100,000.  I think she should have just stuck with the cute white suit that she wore for the civil ceremony. It was perfect.  Just think, given to the Fred Hollows Foundation that enormous amount of money would have restored the sight of about 25,000 people...... Shame on you, Erica.