Although clothing began as a purely practical matter of protecting the body, it soon acquired a cultural aspect, reflecting social custom and personal taste. Over the centuries Turkish costume has been affected by many cultural factors and religious beliefs, and varied widely from region to region. But in all times and place, the most important costume for women has undoubtedly been the wedding dress, even though styles, colours and fabrics may have changed.
In Ottoman tradition young girls generally dressed plainly, it being considered improper for them to wear showy clothing made of fabric with silver or gold thread, sequins or embroidery until they were married. The wedding dress was therefore the first richly ornamented attire they wore. It was distinguished from the costume of other women at the ceremony by a bridal headdress, veil and other accessories.
Ottoman wedding dresses made of rich fabrics in the fashionable style of the time were in bright colours like red, purple, blue or pink, while red was the traditional colour for the daughters and sisters of the sultans.

They were worn with a red bridal veil.From the 1870s onwards, under western influence, wedding dresses of pastel colours became fashionable, but the first white wedding dress was not worn until 1898, when Naime Sultan, the daughter of Sultan Abdülhamid II, married Kemalettin Pasa. This fashion, which began at the palace, gradually spread throughout Turkish society, until eventually it became hard to find any bride not dressed in white.
Wedding dresses and womn'ss clothing in general diverged widely between palace and city, town and country; colours, fabrics, embroidery and style varying according to the customs of each sector of society. The number of days a wedding celebration lasted depended on the social status of the family. Among the upper classes brides wore a different dress for each day of the celebrations, which consisted principally of the henna night, the nuptial day, and the day following the wedding. The dress worn on the latter occasion was known as paçalik.

Following Sultan Abdülaziz's visit to Europe in 1867, young women gradually stopped wearing salvar and the üç etek. Instead, under western influence dresses with two-panelled skirts became popular. These were cut in various styles, plainer for daily wear and heavily embroidered when used as wedding dresses or intended for special occasions. The latter were almost always made of velvet, with long skirts, shaped bodices and round necks. They were open as far as the waist at the front, and worn over a blouse of helâlis, a cloth with a silk warp and linen or wool weft. The head was covered with a scarf of muslin or crepe, and a silver belt was worn around the waist.

At the beginning of the 19th century, dresses known as bindalli made usually of purple or dark red velvet, and embroidered with floral motifs in couched and padded gold work known as dival, were favoured as wedding dresses and for other ceremonial occasions. In rural areas women wore salvars and boleros made of similar fabric and similarly embroidered.
From the reign of Abdülhamid II (1876-1909), the bindalli began to be superseded in cities by long skirts and matching jackets influenced by western fashions, and made of silk fabrics like satin, taffeta and brocade. The earliest examples of wedding outfits in this style were made of satin with bindalli embroidery, and had long trains and shaped jacket

These were succeeded by wedding dresses made of taffeta of silk woven with silver thread, with long skirts cut on the cross, tight boned and corseted bodices, and capes. These were worn with scarves of crepe edged with needle lace. In winter knee-length fur-lined velvet coats tailored to fit the waist, and matching the colour and embroidery of the dress beneath were worn. Shoes and bags were made of fabric or leather, again in matching colours and designs. Western fashions also influenced footwear during this period.
The beautiful Ottoman wedding dresses that inspired the dreams of young girls in the past still have the power to do so today.

* Sebahat Gül, curator of the Ethnographic Section at the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts