11. 1997 Wedding Dress of Willa McCarthy

ID#: VC2003008
Date: 1997
Region: New York
Culture: American
Materials: satin, net, beads, sequins

This dress was worn by Willa McCarthy (Vassar class of 1992) for her wedding at Alumnae House on December 29, 1997.

During the nineteen-eighties and nineteen-nineties, dresses with many layers of tulle were very much in style. The idea was to look like a princess, or more specifically, Princess Diana. She had been married in 1981, in an enormous ivory silk taffeta gown. Made by Elizabeth and David Emmanuel, it was adorned with antique lace and donned a twenty-five foot train. It was the epitome of extravagance, and set the standard for wedding gown design for the next twenty years.

This dress is exemplary of that extravagance: detailed beading and lace work, multiple layers of tulle, and puffed sleeves.

- Ruby Pierce (Vassar class of 2016)

“It was very much a facade, a fantasy, an idea, not based in any kind of real understanding of what we were getting into or whether we were really right for each other.” -Willa McCarthy (Vassar class of 1992)