Wedding dresses are worn at a moment of major transition in the lives of brides and their families, and they are frequently the single most expensive outfit a person ever wears. Often saved and passed down from generation to generation, wedding dresses are a key means of understanding fashion traditions in different cultures across time and geographies. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, wedding dresses worn by women from different religious and ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire document a pivotal moment in the transition from traditional dress to European fashion for women in the empire. Looking at these dresses together with examples that preceded and followed them allows us to follow a dramatic change in dress and the range of styles, constructions, and decorations in a stunningly beautiful group of garments.
Traditional dress for women in the Ottoman Empire consisted of three main elements: a chemise, or gömlek (1991.217.2); baggy trousers, or şalvar; and a robe, or entari (C.I.50.4a-c), often closed with buttons at the bodice and worn with a belt or elaborate shawl at the waist (2019.141.16). To these basic pieces could be added a short jacket, a second robe, or other garments and accessories, depending on the social class and wealth of the wearer, the weather, or the specific event for which the woman was dressing, among other circumstances. Details of the shape, length, decoration, and choice of fabric changed over time as fashions evolved, but the overall ensemble remained consistent into the nineteenth century.
While dress traditions for brides in the Ottoman Empire varied depending on religion, social class, and location—with some regions having notably distinctive customs—many brides traditionally wore red. Their red entaris were often richly decorated with embroidery and gold-colored trim and worn with elaborate headdresses and jewelry. Based on comparisons with securely dated and located examples as well as contemporary illustrations, specific design elements such as the U-shaped neckline and intricate treatment of the sleeves indicate the probable origin of a garment—in the case of this red entari (1980.145.3), for a Muslim bride in the Balkans.
In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, elite Ottoman women in Istanbul and other cities began looking to the European fashions worn by visitors to the empire. They began to adjust their wardrobes, adopting accessories such as gloves, parasols, and stockings. Small tailoring changes were made in their entaris, such as adding cuffs to the sleeves and small gathers at the waist, to emulate the more tailored shape of European dresses. A more substantial fashion innovation can be seen in the wedding garments known as bindallı dresses, which came into use in the mid-nineteenth century (C.I.65.18.1).
Bindallı dresses were worn for weddings, both by the bride and guests, and for other special occasions. Typically made of silk velvet in jewel tones of dark maroon or blue, the dresses are embellished with extensive embroidery in gold metal-wrapped thread in dazzling designs. Bindallı means “a thousand branches” and refers to these elaborate embroidered decorations. Appearing in a range of shapes and fabrics over the decades, bindallı dresses demonstrate the changes in dress design and tailoring modes that characterized women’s clothing in Istanbul and elsewhere in the empire, as well as regional design variations (C.I.51.98).
In its simplest form, the basic structure of the bindallı garment is closely related to the entari (1993.420.1). The entari was made from a single width of fabric forming the body of the robe, with extra fullness added to the skirt by triangular pieces of fabric on each side of the front and the back. The long skirt of the robe was slit to the hips on either side, revealing the baggy trousers worn underneath. With a few simple modifications—the long central opening of the entari replaced by a shorter front opening, the elimination of the side slits in the skirt, and the shortening of sleeves—the robe of traditional Ottoman women’s attire became a dress, donned over the head. Bindallı gowns bear little resemblance to the closely fitted European outfits of the same period, but in many examples there are gathers at each side to mark the waist and the garments were often worn belted—indications of the early efforts to adapt Ottoman dress to European modes.
Bindallı embroidery was achieved using a style called dival, characterized by the use of metal-wrapped threads and couching, a technique in which the metal-wrapped thread is laid on the surface of the fabric and held in place by a thinner silk or cotton thread. Dival embroidery began with pattern designs drawn on paper and then cut out of cardboard. The cardboard pieces were pasted onto the dress fabric, which was clamped to a stand to hold it taut and secure. The metal-wrapped threads that comprise the embroidered design were drawn back and forth across the cardboard pattern pieces and held in place at the edges by cotton couching. The cotton thread of the couching is visible on the underside of the garment while the metal-wrapped thread remains visible on the outer surface. In some cases, additional texture for a design was created by using padding between the cardboard and metal-wrapped thread. The eye-catching dival work was supplemented by the use of metal sequins, tiny coils of metal wire (called tırtıllar, or caterpillars), and pearls. The tiny tırtıllar, which often outline the petals of the large flowers, add to the complexity of the overall design. Given the high cost of the materials and the level of skill required for dival embroidery, most of this labor was performed by professional embroiderers, usually men.
Embroidery designs on bindallı dresses fall into several categories, the most common of which are an all-over design (1979.442) or one in which the motifs are arranged in garlands around the skirt of the dress (C.I.69.6). Each style uses the blank fabric of the dress differently, although they share many elements. On almost every dress the front opening and the dress hem are articulated with a linear design. Similarly, the sleeve cuffs are nearly always ornamented, with motifs sometimes scattered across the upper sleeve and sometimes covering the entire sleeve. In many examples, the bodice is decorated with a pattern designed to fit within that area of the dress, in some cases extending over the shoulders and ending in the center of the back.
An all-over bindallı design presents a riot of embroidery that completely covers the skirt. Floral elements comprise most of the examples, including ribbon garlands, ropes, tassels, vases, and baskets, all framed by borders that define the hem and front opening of the dress. Garland designs are generally composed of small bouquets or floral elements, with smaller related motifs scattered between the rows. This design almost always includes a medallion motif on the dress’s bodice, which extends across the shoulders and the back of the dress.
Several of the bindallı dresses in the Museum’s collection were purchased by visitors to Türkiye. In one case, the garment was altered for wear by the new owner (2004.330). This elaborately decorated velvet dress was modified from its original modest round neck and lace-edged front opening to create a much more dramatic, plunging neckline in what must have seemed an elegant and exotic evening gown to the new owner. Such a neckline would have been completely unsuitable in the garment’s original context but was perhaps appropriate for evening wear in the United States of the 1920s.
Over time the one-piece bindallı dress became a two-piece outfit more closely resembling European fashions in its construction and tailoring. Examples of such wedding outfits have survived in the traditional dark velvets but appear more commonly in pastel satins. Often the ensemble would combine a flared skirt with a fitted over-blouse decorated with bindallı embroidery and beaded trim at the cuffs and the hem. Such blouses closely resemble similar European garments of this period with a high neck and full sleeve. From such an ensemble, it was a short step to wedding outfits for the elite women of Istanbul that were indistinguishable from those worn by their peers in Europe and America.
A wedding dress in The Costume Institute (C.I.46.97.1a,b) is a near match to one worn by a wealthy Ottoman bride in 1910, now in the collection of the Sadberk Hanım Museum in Istanbul. An elegant two-piece dress of cream-colored satin, the boned blouse of the Istanbul ensemble has a high neck and full, elbow-length sleeves, with a bias cut skirt and train. Dated 1902–05, The Met’s example is also a two-piece dress made of cream-colored silk. The similarities extend to the design of the blouse, with the high-boned neck popular in these years; full, elbow-length sleeves; and the shape of the skirt. Both dresses are trimmed with extensive embroidery and lace in the same color palette as the dress fabric. The overall impressions created by the two European-style wedding outfits—one worn in New York and one in Istanbul, separated by a few years in date and many thousands of miles—are extremely close, demonstrating a shared language for wedding fashion among elite women in major urban centers and the extent to which fashion in the early twentieth century had already become a transnational phenomenon.