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Brides. Tradition and Fashion in Greece

Start Date 23 January 2014
End Date 25 May 2014
Venue Benaki Museum
Location Athens, Greece
Curator Ioanna Papantoniou

Tradition and fashion in Greece Focusing on weddings, those significant times in a woman’s life, the exhibition presents a large array of clothing from the collections of the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation.  

Commencing with local traditional Greek dress in the 19th century and going on to European fashion, Brides is an exhibition that includes wedding dresses from the end of the 19th century to the dawn of the 21st, and intends to showcase the variety of shapes and decorative motifs in bridal wear of that period, and through this variety, the particular social and experiential function of the wedding dress. From elegant and ornate wedding dresses at the close of the 19th century to the avant-garde creations of modern designers and eccentric appearances of brides in the 21st century, the creation of wedding apparel goes hand-in-hand with fashion trends in a very particular way, oftentimes drawing its inspiration from the shapes of the past or forecasting future fashion trends.  

The exhibition is part of the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation and the material it presents, which is mainly from donations, is a tribute to the Foundation donors.