Wedding Gown c. 1938

Lucien Verbeke made this drawing of a wedding gown, likely sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, with pencil and watercolor on paper. The image has a documentary quality – it’s almost as though we’re looking at a pattern for reproduction. You can imagine a seamstress consulting it in the workshop. The creamy fabric of the dress itself has a fluid, almost liquid appearance, belying the intense labor that would have been necessary to produce it. The artist has paid careful attention to the soft folds and drapes of the material, conveying a real sense of its weight and texture. It is these details which invite you to imagine the many unseen hands involved in the gown's making, the hours of meticulous work that went into its construction. Ultimately, this image reminds us that even seemingly straightforward depictions of clothing can reveal complex stories about production, labor, and the human touch.