june whites

today is the last sunday of june. i suppose many couples tied the knot yesterday. any girl, once, now and probably forever, wants to be a june bride. i don’t know where this superstition came from, though. white wedding gowns look gorgeous and really stand out against the background of fresh green in june. “white” remains quite special as the colour of bride, while black is no longer the colour of wearing mourning. many women do attend weddings even in little black dresses these days. when i saw a host of articles about june bridals on the net, my elegant white elephants came back to my mind out of the blue.

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i thought: although i haven’t seen them for ages now, yes, somewhere, i still have those white things that make me feel romantic. Indeed, they were vacuum-packed in a plastic bag and kept in a box in my closet. so i opened the bag and let them out -- just exquisite. i sighed with deep admiration. my admiration obviously was for french women in mid 19th century who had done incredible needlework like these. i found white nightgowns at les puces in paris in the 80’s. flea market was one of my must-visits whenever i made a paris trip back then. i remember how i negotiated the price with the lady antique dealer when i bought the first one.

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dawn work, embroidery, pin-tucked pleats, trimming, scallop and ruffle are genuine vintage and all hand-sewn (a few seams in some parts were reinforced by machine). so, when did i wear these french white cotton chemise ancienne? well, one of them was cropped off to wear as a blouse; i wore it back in the new romanticism era. also, i’ve worn some with simple needlework as nightgowns. but, as i was scared to wear out, i was saving the complicated rest for special occasions, which have never happened so far. meanwhile, my other romantic whites: a lingerie bag bought from vietnam and a swatow hankie from china are new, so that i can use them without fears.
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