One of the oldest elements of a bridal ensemble, dating at least as far back as Ancient Greece, veils have largely remained a staple accessory for even the most modern, subversive brides.
When singer Lily Allen married actor David Harbour at an Elvis-inspired Las Vegas chapel in 2020, she eschewed an ornate gown in favor of a ‘60s-style Dior double-breasted mini-dress — but still wore a conventional tiered veil in her up-do. And when singer Gwen Stefani decided on a boundary-pushing wedding frock (also Dior, designed by John Galliano for her 2002 wedding) that was dip-dyed in a shock of pink; so too was her trailing veil.
Over the weekend, Lauren Bezos Sanchez became the latest high-profile bride complete her look with tulle on top during her lavish, eyebrow-raising wedding in Venice. After slipping on her custom Dolce & Gabbana mermaid-line gown at her final fitting, seamstresses applied the cascading lace-finished veil to Bezos Sanchez’s head “like a crown,” according to Vogue.
A veiled history
At her wedding in 1840, Queen Victoria swapped her velvet robe of state in favor of a white silk gown — its wide, almost off-the-shoulder neckline trimmed with a curtain of lace. On the day she married Prince Albert, she was not the British monarch, but an adoring bride dressed in the purest ivory to signify her virtue. (The archbishop asked if Her Majesty would like the word “obey” removed from the vows. She insisted it remained.) If only for just a few hours, she was playing a different role and wearing a different costume: Both would endure for well over a century.
Only recently have some of the traditional aspects of bridal wear first popularized by Victoria been updated for modern times. Hemlines are growing ever higher as the mini wedding dress reigns supreme in the age of the pared-down ceremony; while some brides have opted out of a dress altogether — gliding down the aisle in a tailored suits instead. An increasing number of brides, such as singer and actress Mandy Moore at her wedding in 2018, opt out of wearing white altogether (she chose a dusty-rose gown from Rodarte) . Yet despite these contemporary reforms, one long-established accessory has displayed more staying power than the rest: The veil.
If anything, veils appear to have gotten bigger in recent years — sometimes demanding more attention than the dress itself. In 2018, actress Priyanka Chopra made headlines with her Ralph Lauren wedding gown, topped off with 75-feet of tulle (and five people to help carry it). The following year, Hailey Baldwin (now Hailey Bieber) married Justin Bieber in a giant Off-White wedding veil with the words “‘Till Death do us Part” embroidered at the hem of the pooling fabric.
Since then, grandiose rivers of tulle have streamed through celebrity ceremonies like fast-rushing water: from Sophia Richie to Paris Hilton, Naomi Biden, Nicola Peltz Beckham and Millie Bobby Brown. “The veil has become a canvas that really provides the drama you might not get from a more minimalist dress,” said Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, author of “The Way We Wed: A Global History of Wedding Fashion,” in a phone call with CNN.
A return to fashion
Previously, veils of grandeur — or length — were reserved for royal nuptials. In 1981, Princess Diana wore the largest veil in the monarch’s history, clocking in at a whopping 25-foot. It was hand-embellished with 10,000 micro pearls by London-based seamstress Peggy Umpleby, who took the veil home on public transport each day to continue working on it well into the night. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, followed suit in 2018 with a 16-foot long veil made of silk tulle, hand-embroidered with the flowers of the Commonwealth countries.
The veil’s appeal has even trickled off the aisle and onto the runway. This season at Paris Fashion Week, Andreas Kronthaler, creative director at Vivienne Westwood, sent both a black and white tulle veil down the catwalk, off-setting a polka dot and navy dress respectively. At the London shows, Turkish designer Bora Aksu went one step further, offering netted veils in red and blush pink. Even at this year’s Grammys, musician Gracie Abrams donned a chiffon Chanel veil for the ceremony’s red carpet.
But according to Chrisman-Campbell, veils are simply returning to fashion — not being adopted by it. Historically, veils in western culture began as “a fashion for the wealthy,” she said. The upper echelons wore hand-made lace, which during the late 18th century was worth more than its weight in gold. (According to the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, one meter of lace would take a skilled worker in the 1700s a year to produce.) “Wearing lace, whether a ruffle or a veil or a cap was a status symbol,” Chrisman-Campbell said. By the early 1800s, industrialization introduced machine-made lace, making the fabric more affordable to the masses. “Suddenly, more people could afford to have a very beautiful piece of diaphanous, beautifully embellished textile,” she said. “That’s why veils became fashionable.”
In Ancient Greece, the bridal veil, also known as a “flammeum,” was seen as a form of protection for women, shielding them from evil spirits, wedding jitters and other potential bad omens. Other cultures have used the garment as a means of obscuring the bride’s face during the final moments before an arranged marriage. Since veils have existed throughout history in a variety of cultures, they are a shifting emblem — representing mystical boundaries, or potentially misogynistic attitudes. One urban myth argues veils were intended to hinder women from potentially running away, while others speculate they symbolize a bride being untouched and brand new — a prize to be unwrapped.
‘Anything but a veil’
While Chrisman-Campbell isn’t convinced by every interpretation of the veil, she has observed its association with purity and chastity — which, for at least a century, meant divorcees and widows wearing veils during their second wedding was widely considered a social faux pas. “There was a big taboo against wearing a veil if you had been married once before,” she said. Second brides were also excluded from wearing white, carrying a bouquet or wearing a floor-length gown. “But women came up with some really ingenious alternatives,” said Chrisman-Campbell. “They might wear a hat, they might wear a floral arrangement in their hair, anything but a veil.”
For her second wedding in 1964, Elizabeth Taylor wore a marigold yellow chiffon baby doll dress — her hair braided down her back and strewn with flowers. Meanwhile, in 1962, Audrey Hepburn dutifully toed the line with the sartorial rules of second marriages, saying “I do” to Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti in a short baby-pink Givenchy mini dress and a silk headscarf. “If you didn’t pretend it was your first marriage, it made it more acceptable,” Chrisman-Campbell added.
The expectation that second-time brides should pare down their look finally waned in the 1980s, and these stringent sartorial rules became redundant. One of the most joyful examples of a third-time bride embracing the pomp and pageantry of a big white wedding was Angelina Jolie. During her 2014 nuptials to Brad Pitt, Jolie wore a classic ivory satin Versace gown. The main event, however, was her veil, which was embroidered with colourful drawings from her children.
“She really upended the whole idea of the veil as suggesting modesty or virginity, or any sort of bashfulness,” said Chrisman-Campbell, who felt this level of personalization spoke to a new era of progressive matrimony. “(Today) there are often blended families involved, so the children are involved, and the wedding becomes an even bigger deal because it represents not just two people joining, but two families joining.”
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