My Nana & Her Wedding Dress

I would like to talk to you about my Nana and her wedding dress…

On April 4th 1953, my Nana Margaret Peach married my Grandad Clive Riley in a dress that her mum (Ellen Peach) purchased with coupons and ‘6 bob’ (72p) from the local Co-Op in Abbey Street, Nuneaton. She was 19 years old at the time.

Today, on the 21st May 2023, my Nana would have been 90 years old and with the dress in its 70th year, I want to pay homage to my amazing Nana and the dress she passed down to me.  

My Grandparents on their wedding day; Clive Riley & Margaret Riley (nee Peach)
4th April 1953
Source: C. Riley

Wedding Dress Analysis

Let’s look at the dress and its construction to begin with….

My Nana’s wedding dress is a simple A-line silhouette with a sweetheart bodice, a lace yoke and long sleeves with a medieval-style pointed shape at the wrists. 

The sleeves have a small metal hook, a handsewn thread bar at the cuff and a bound edge at the sleeve hem. This is machine stitched at the top and bottom of the binding for a clean finish. There are also 2 darts at the back of elbow of the sleeves to provide additional shaping. 

Hook and Thread Bar
Elbow Darts

At the shoulders, small shoulder pads have been sewn into the top of the sleeve to provide volume and structure. These seem to have been handmade from fabric remnants and stuffed with other fabric off-cuts to provide lift at the shoulders and handsewn in place. 

Outside of Sleeve Head
Inside of Sleeve Head with Handmade Shoulder Pad

The Body of the Gown:

At the top of the gown, the lace yoke has a high round neck which covers the décolletage and continues down to a front sweetheart bodice. This has a small lace ruffle along the edge which is top-stitched in place. The round neckline of the lace yoke is also neatly finished with a small 0.5cm binding in the main dress fabric.

The front bodice has small horizontal gathers between the centre front line and the vertical single-pointed darts near the waistline. The outer gathers appear to be top-stitched in place with waist ties also inserted into the dart openings. These ties are bagged out and have seams mid-way through them which could indicate that these were pieced together with shorter pieces of fabric rather than cut as a longer length. Making the waist ties from shorter pieces would have been more economical when cutting out so it is likely that this would have been the case.

Front Lace Yoke
Front Bodice

The back of the gown is simple with unadorned panels for the back right and left pieces; there are vertical single-pointed darts that provide fit, matching with the front of the dress, and a centre back seam. A keyhole opening sits at the top of this seam which is bias bound in the same main body fabric. 2 sets of hooks and thread bars are sewn mid-way and at the top of this opening to close the dress. There is also a short double-lapped zip in the side seam to aid with getting the dress on and off.

The dress has a waist seam which is curved to give a better fit. The skirt flares out from this into 2 front and 2 back panels, with a seam running down the centre front and centre back lines. There doesn’t appear to be too much fullness in these flared panels but the skirt does have a nice drape to it. It is possible that extra width was added in at the hemlines of each of these panels to give a more A-Line shape to the dress.

Back Bodice
Keyhole Back Fastenings
Back Panels and Ties

However, it does contrast with the dress silhouettes of the time which were larger ‘ballgown’-esque shapes and utilised a number of petticoats to give extra volume (Vintage Dancer, 2018). The sweetheart neckline on the other hand was very traditional of the era and featured on a wide range of wedding gown silhouettes that were on sale during the 1950s (Morgan Creek Weddings, n.d.). Additionally, although no petticoat or lining is included within the dress, it is possible that my Nana did wear something underneath as the fabric is quite thin in reality but looking at the photographs, the fabric appears opaque.

The interesting thing about the skirt is that it was sewn back to front! I remember my Nana telling me that the skirt was sewn on backwards…something my Grandad also remembers. As this wasn’t a bespoke dress, it is likely that it would be too expensive to unpick and amend the skirt so was probably left as is for that reason.

The Fabric:

For the specific fabrics of the gown, it is difficult to determine when looking at the dress as no care label appears in the garment. However, researching into similar 1950s gowns and the fabrics available at the time, it is likely that it is a form of satin or silk brocade as there is a matt pattern across the top layer of it and is quite heavy considering there is so little detail across the dress. However, my Grandad has a newspaper cutting from the Observer on the 10th April 1953 which contains the wedding notice for their marriage. In it, the dress is described as “white figured satin” (The Nuneaton Observer, 1953) which matches other fabric research from the era. 
Excerpt from The Nuneaton Observer;
Wedding Announcement of
Miss M Peach & Mr C Riley
10th April 1953
Source: C. Riley

The lace detailing at the top of the bodice appears to be in a corded pattern and the decoration sewn into the lace net in a half-drop repeat pattern. The floral pattern is stitched in quite a uniformed way so it would suggest that this was done by a machine instead of by hand, but this is difficult to know for sure. However, Jeremy Farrell (2007) in his ‘Identifying Handmade and Machine Lace’ article suggests that after 1950, lace was an extremely popular fabric for wedding dresses and would most likely be made from nylon or polyester on a Leavers or a Raschel machine.

Lace Yoke

A Leavers machine which originated in 1813 would make the base net fabric and with an addition of ‘jacquard apparatus’ to the machine, the delicate lace pattern would be woven into it (Farrell, 2007). In contrast, the Raschel machine (invented in 1859 in Germany) would use a warp frame with jacquard apparatus, but could produce synthetic fabrics at a faster speed than a Leavers machine (Farrell, 2007). As a result, the Raschel machine may have been more commonly used to produce ‘off-the-peg’ gowns due to its speed.

The Wedding Dress Brand:

Only one label features on the inside of the gown; the maker ‘Gordons Gowns’. Research into this brand has resulted in minimal findings, with only a couple of other gowns being photographed and published online. However, the Co-Operative Society has always featured a wide range of goods and operated as a “grocers, dairies, drapers, hardware and butcher shop [where] you could also buy the latest fashion” (CultureNL, n.d.) so it is likely that Gordons Gowns was stocked in the Co-Op store my Nana and Great-Nan purchased it.
Central Grocery, Abbey Street; Nuneaton
Source: Heart of England Society in Our Warwickshire

I have also spoken to the archivist at the Co-Operative Heritage Trust and she has also confirmed that the gown would have been outsourced and sold as an ‘off the peg’ dress as they sold multiple brands in their stores, not just their own. It also appears that Gordons Gowns were a common brand in the 1950s and probably could have been sold in different stores, not just the Co-Op (Co-Operative Heritage Trust Archive, 2023). Additionally, a member of the Nuneaton and North Warwickshire Family History Society also confirmed that it is likely Gordons Gowns supplied “several, hundred dresses…and could be dispatched in small consignments nationwide so that any one store had one design each” (Val in Crankshaw, 2023). My Nana didn’t say if there was only one style of dress available but it is possible that this was the case.

Purchasing the Gown

I remember my Nana telling me that her mother purchased the gown with coupons and ‘6 bob’. For those not familiar with British slang, a ‘bob’ was the equivalent to 1 shilling in old money. But it’s the coupons that I wasn’t sure about – was this still Government rationing or something specific to the Co-Op. Research into this process has revealed that it’s likely that my Great-Nan used her Co-Op ‘Divi’s’ (Dividends) to pay for the dress along with 6 shillings.
Examples of 'Divi' (Dividend) Tokens. Source: McIvor, 2020; Co-Operative Heritage Trust

Members of the Co-Operative would receive ‘Divi’s’ (a share of the Co-Op’s profits) if they purchased goods from the local Co-Op store…the more they bought, the more ‘Divi’s’ they would collect. On ‘Divi’ Day, the profits would be paid in cash or put towards funding a good cause. Members names were originally recorded in a ledger, but as its popularity grew, each name was replaced by a 4-5 digit number to make recording purchases and dividend amounts easier to track. A few times a year, dividend amounts would be calculated and shared with Co-Op members and was considered a great way to save for big expenses, such as a wedding. The dividend tokens themselves were small coins/ discs made from tinned iron or zinc and were kept by members until Divi Day when the would be exchanged [McIvor, 2020). It is highly likely that my Great-Nan saved up these tokens and exchanged them on ‘Divi’ Day to help pay for my Nan’s wedding dress. I’m not sure what the total amount of the dress would have been as I don’t have a record of this, but I have asked the Co-Op Heritage Trust and local historical societies to see if they have any information about what dresses would have cost at the time. Val, a member of the Nuneaton and North Warwickshire Family History Society explains that using coupons and 6 shillings would be about right for the price of a wedding dress at the time;

The price looks about right to me from memory. Co-op members were very keen to get their ‘divi’ and I remember small blue receipts being issued for purchases. Perhaps they were called coupons with people being familiar with that term from war time (Val in Crankshaw, 2023).

Val also explained that “in 1959, an artist friend designed and made a wedding dress and charged 30/- for it (£1.50)” (Val in Cranshaw, 2023) so it could be suggested that the ‘divi’ coupons were worth a large portion of the dress cost, but unfortunately, I have no record of how many ‘divi’s’ my Great-Nan used alongside her 6 shillings.

My Grandparents and both of their families on their wedding day; 
4th April 1953
Source: C. Riley

 My Grandad also has some receipts from the wedding day; the drinks and catering costing a total of 18 pounds, 16 shillings and 7 pence (equivalent to £587.63) which included 1 bottle of Vimto at 6 pence (78p) and 3 bottles of port totalling 2 pounds, 12 shillings and 6 pence respectively (£81.92).

There was also the cost of the 7 day honeymoon in Blackpool which my Grandad says was very expensive at the time reaching a grand total of 10 pounds 3 shillings (£317.16). With today’s cost of living being so high, it is difficult to compare these amounts to what we know wedding dresses, ceremony and honeymoon costs to be in todays money.

Wedding Day Drinks Receipt
Source: C. Riley
Honeymoon Receipt
Source: C. Riley

The Legacy

The dress was originally stored in the attic of my grandparents home, hence the patch of moth damage on the front of the dress, but it now lives in a well-protected dress bag in my wardrobe. Considering it is 70 years old and spent a large portion of that time hidden away, it’s still in very good condition overall. I am very honoured and proud to have been handed the role of custodian for this dress and feel it’s extremely important as an educator to discuss vintage garments to highlight how things were previously constructed and remember their owners. Skills and construction techniques have evolved so much that we can sometimes forget with the rapid speed of fashion in today’s society that processes were much different in previous years.

If you have something hidden away that holds history, tradition or a cherished memory for you, take it out, look at it and share its story. If there are things you’re unsure of, research them…there is always someone online who can help you and point you in the right direction. You never know…you might find out something amazing.

I would like to dedicate this article to my Nana who passed away in December 2021.

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With thanks to Clare and Jane from the Co-Operative Heritage Trust, and Lisa and Val from the Nuneaton and North Warwickshire Family History Society for their help.

Colorised pictures were created on the My Heritage website: MyHeritage In Color™, world's best technology for colorizing and restoring the colors in historical photos - MyHeritage

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