What Wedding Dresses Around the World Look Like

[Music] i'm beryl and this week's around the world topic is a little bit different surprisingly the topic is not food related this week we're looking at wedding dresses mini story time i got married four years ago my husband is from a city in northern india so when we got married we had two weddings one in the united states and one in india the indian wedding was just crazy it was so much fun i experienced so many things that i had never known about the biggest one for me though was what i wore it was my wedding dress i had never seen or worn anything like that in my entire life and i absolutely loved it but that was the impetus for this episode i know that a lot of women wear the white western style gown on their wedding day but that is not the default around the world wedding dresses vary greatly from country to country so for this episode i spoke to seven dressmakers in seven countries to see the different types of wedding dresses around the world so this is the wedding dress episode [Music] first up a dress full of color from [Music] indonesia [Music] [Music] [Music] m foreign [Music] [Music] next a dressmaker from northern england if i ever told you what a dress cost i would be killed my name's thelma madine i am a wedding dress designer mainly for the travelling community i've been making wedding dresses for the last 30 years my mother's a dressmaker and all my family are into some sort of like tailoring or dressmaking any girls wedding day is important and the dress is important but in the traveling community the wedding dress is something that's dreamed about from when they're like three four years old they start drawing their wedding dress when they're that young and that's how important it is to them to have the perfect dress for the perfect day they want to look like a princess they want everyone to gasp when they walk down the aisle the dresses have got to be white they've got to be white but what they put on the dress the decoration is loads of swarovski crystal pails and things like that so they like it blinged up they want to stand out a typical dress you're looking at least 5000 crystals on it usually more and fabrics you're looking like 40 50 meters we import fabrics from all over the world and it's always the best dutchess satin silks satins are man-made fibre so they can be really white the time for us to make all the decoration and all the under structure is approximately 300 hours i think the thing i like most about making these dresses is waiting for the customer's reaction when they see it we do a big reveal you're sort of holding your breath until they've seen it and you see the relief in their face and when they're really happy with it and it's like a sigh of relief wow yeah they love it next up a dressmaker and beater from the cheyenne tribe in oklahoma [Music] to my ponca people i am dakchuge nange my given name is kenneth taylor i am an enrolled member of the ponca nation of oklahoma i also represent the cheyenne the pawnee and the southern ute i am an artist my main focus is beading every tribe has a different style of dress so these are southern cheyenne book skin dresses the cheyenne dresses traditionally have the strips on them and on the skirt they have curves and those represent the mountains we also have the cones they are to scare away bad spirits creating bug skin dresses are extremely hard but it's also really exciting too we use alkyd deer hide it's usually white as white as you can get it they can be colorful depending on the type of beads you use they usually consist of the four colors red yellow white and black they represent the different peoples of the world buckskin dresses could easily go up to ten thousand dollars depending on how much work and how intricate the beadwork is my favorite part about making the dress would probably be actually the last stitch bringing it all together at the end of the day what i love the most is seeing my creation being worn and being cherished i think it is a sense that you can go back into the past that that just gives them a sense of pride knowing that they are representing their tribe in a good way and that they get to wear their traditional clothing on their special day just that's what i like the most is seeing my work being loved next up a dress made with gold from tunisia [Music] hey [Music] [Music] um [Music] you [Music] from india a dressmaker and the same style of dress that i wore on my wedding day my name is karan durani i'm a designer i feel like indian fashion in general completely revolves around weddings what happens in india is that we have these beautiful different kind of cultures coming together everybody follows a different tradition but we have this menga choli which centers the universe of indian bridalware it's an extension of indian wear from the olden eras we have a typical choli which kind of looks like a crop top and paired with a skirt but probably with a lot more flowers and the entire outfit is eventually paired with a loose fabric which a girl wears on her body sometimes over the head like a whale as for the bride's needs chanderi is one of the main focus fabrics which is hand woven and it's a mix of cotton and silk then embroidery stars takes months and months and months when it comes to stitching and a really elaborate wedding outfit would probably take easily three kilos of just simple sataras or beads which just get all over the outfit yeah in india we are known about our craftsmanship the embroidery is the finesse of course it is a high pressure job i want that bride to literally beam with an infectious joy that makes everybody around her being [Music] from ghana a kente dressmaker [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and finally in sweden we spoke to a traditional folk dressmaker my name is fiyamo kales bloom i'm an embroiderer i do a lot of crafts and folk costume as well the wedding dress in the swedish culture is important it's meant to signal festivity the name of this dress is vonga dress wunga is a small parish outside of north shopping in sweden it's a black silk taffeta dress to decorate the dress we'd use white or gold lace and glass beads and pearls and also make small flowers out of paper or fabric scraps i have a favorite part of this gown at the bottom of the skirt there's a check pattern i think it's adorable and under this dress there will be three layers of wool skirts to make the dress stand out like a bell one of the most important elements is the crown it's big and heavy it's from virgin mary it's something almost a bit royal about a girl who wears a crown today we see more people wearing folk costume and wedding dresses i think mostly in the countryside where the cultural heritage is a bit stronger this is one way of preserving but also developing the cultural heritage of sweden [Music] i really loved making this episode i loved seeing all of the different dresses how they are adorned how beautiful they all were it was such a cool thing to do and while the dresses obviously were really different there was this through line of the dressmakers obviously they're all very skilled at their craft but when i asked them what the most important thing about their job was they all said the same thing it made me feel really good to hear [Music] dunya i hope they feel comfortable happy joyful and the prettiest they've ever been i hope she wears it proudly in that they feel the most prettiest in this because they are representing their tribe and their culture and so it makes them feel special and it gives them honor that they are wearing that particular style of dress [Music] for that day she's cinderella for the day and that's what they want they are special they've waited for this day for since they were like three four years old so the most important day of their life is this day yeah a bride celebrates not just her wedding her outfit but the entire process of this journey her own way there's a lot of emotional pressure a lot of societal pressure of what the right thing to do is the idea is to you do it your way and just celebrate it you

Channel: Great Big Story

Views: 2,726,090

Rating: 4.9396229 out of 5

Keywords: great big story, gbs, lag, documentary, docs, new releases, around the world, lifestyle & entertainment, lifestyle, entertainment, human condition, wedding, wedding dress, wedding dresses, dress, dresses, gowns, gown, white, marriage, fashion, style, dressmakers, global fashion

Id: cNxTlByUezo

Length: 15min 41sec (941 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 30 2020