Amy Vach
Catalog Number: 2019.037.01
During the 1920s, society's rules were greatly altered. Young women said goodbye to the restricting corsets, layers of undergarments, and long dresses of the past. Instead they began wearing sleeveless dresses with hemlines that were above the knee.
This white dress has all the tell-tale fashion attributes of the Roaring '20s. Made of sheer silk, it features a dropped waist, short hemline, and hand-sewn beading in butterfly motifs.
Amazingly, this fashionable 1920s dress was a wedding gown. Today’s wedding dresses are usually white or off-white and full-length. But in the 1920s, sleeveless, short-skirted wedding dresses were in vogue.
This dress was worn by La Crosse resident Dorothy Rose Jahimiak when she married Charles Lepsch at St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church on the morning of Tuesday, June 12, 1928. An article about the wedding was published in the afternoon in the La Crosse Tribune the same day the couple was married.
"The bride wore white georgette, and her veil was in cap effect. She carried a white pearl rosary, and her shower bouquet was of pink roses and Swainsona (an Australian desert pea). Her slippers were of white kid."
The article goes on to report that Dorothy’s maid of honor wore a yellow georgette dress, and carried a bouquet of yellow roses and lavender snapdragons. After the wedding, a reception was held at the home of the bride's parents. 100 guests attended the gathering, with yellow and white decorations ornamenting the house.
Even though no photographs of the event have survived, the detailed newspaper account makes the wedding easy to picture.
This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on February 1, 2020.
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