by Adele R
Originally published in Currents August/September 2005
Copyright © 2004-2005 AWC Hamburg

 

This exhibition would be enjoyable in any museum, but this lovely collection of wedding gowns from the mid-18th century to today is doubly enhanced by the ambiance of the Jenisch Haus, one of Hamburg’s most charming landmarks. The exhibit seems tailor-made for its setting, and in fact, the villa off the Elbchaussee near Klein Flottbek has become a choice location for stylish weddings and elegant parties. The captivating exhibit displayed in these sweet surroundings will amuse and charm the most hardened visitor.

The Jenisch Haus, with its sur-rounding park, is certainly one of the great joys of Hamburg. If you have missed this gem, late summer is the perfect time of year to discover it. Originally the elegant country retreat of Hamburg Senator Martin Johann Jenisch, the white villa was designed and built by Franz Gustav Forsmann and Germany’s most famous classical architect, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, in 1853. The rooms are furnished in styles from Baroque to Biedermeier with decorative inlays in the parquet floors in the main salon and floor-to-ceiling windows opening on to the park with its mesmerizing view of the Elbe. It is easy to imagine the Herrschaften (ruling elite) 150 years ago gathered in these rooms awaiting the bride, with a Mozart quartet in the background. Jenisch Park lends itself to a picnic on the grass, or stop here on your way to the beach area at Blankenese. If your husband or partner turns green at the thought of wedding gowns, leave him to play outside with the kids or just snooze under a tree.

The exhibit contains 60 gowns. Many of the dresses and accessories come from boxes stored and virtually forgotten in the cellar of the Altonaer Museum, of which the Jenisch Haus is a dépendance, but there are a good number on loan, including the wedding dress of Ingeborg, Princess of Schleswig Holstein, who is the patron of the exhibition, as well as dresses from the great couture houses in Paris. The gowns range from exquisite to a downright travesty (more about that one later), and there are 140 assorted wedding accessories from shoes and embroidered bags to the hand-painted fans, which were the main accoutrement for a bride in the 18th century.

The earlier gowns are not white; that style evolved after Josephine introduced her transparent Empire dresses in innocent ivory in the late 1700s. Notwithstanding the French Revolution with its, shall we say, rejection of her, brides of the 1800s adopted the classical lines and the purity of Josephine’s fashions, and white became the color of choice. White, of course, reflected the tradition of the church and the virgin bride, but earlier brides dressed simply in formal gowns in any color or design. The earliest dress, from 1761 (left), is a beautiful brocade in tapestry design and stands alone in the Rococo cabinet befitting its style.

There were other exceptions to the tradition of white: brides in the countryside chose dresses which they would thereafter use as their “best” in useful colors, often black, which they might don for funerals and other important occasions. In the early years of the German Democratic Republic, the government, in its efforts to promote a secular, non-religious society, attempted to ban white wedding gowns, but the population paid no attention.

The advent of photography after the 1850s allowed the curators the chance to add some fascinating documentation to the exhibit: early brides and grooms stand frozen in front of scenic backdrops; photographs of royal weddings include Charles and Diana and Charles and Camilla; F.C. Gundlach’s fashion photos in the 60s; Yoko Ono and John Lennon and other photos of people famous and not paper the walls. In one, Hermann Goering stands on the steps of a church with his bride whose veil is crowned with a headdress typical of the back-to-nature idolization of the peasant by the Nazis.

Another theme of the exhibition is the bride in film. Two dresses from German films stand next to the wedding dress from The Phantom of the Opera, and 30-minute segments with brides in film, including Marlene Dietrich in Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel), Katharine Ross in The Graduate and Robert Altman’s Pret-a-porter, will be shown daily at 12:00, 14:00 and 16:00. The Abaton Kino will also present a long list of films featuring weddings, including Four Weddings and a Funeral, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and the award-winning Gegen die Wand, the German film by the German/Turkish director Fatih Akin.

In every exhibition, there is always something you really dislike. I am pretty sure this dress, designed by John Galliano for the Dior Collection of 2005, will garner a lot of votes for that category. The most astonishing piece of information is that this beauty, made to her measurements of course, was the choice of the newest Mrs. Donald Trump. I cannot do it justice, but take note of the peculiar rubbery beige bra which sticks up above the folds of the décolleté and the crinoline puffs which give it a look of sitting on its own even when the wearer is standing. This pearl- and jewel-encrusted nightmare prompted my colleague, Becky Tan, to a fantasy: “I keep thinking,” she said, “if you put in a little motor with a remote control – like these little remote control cars that kids play with – you could just send it down the aisle to marry Donald without anybody in it. He probably wouldn’t notice the difference.”

The Jenisch Haus is open Tue to Sun 11:00-18:00. Take the S-Bahn to Klein Flottbek and walk about 8-10 minutes on Baron-Voght-Straße toward the Elbe. If driving, there is no parking in front of the Jenisch Haus, but from the Elbchausee turn right on Holztwiete or Baron-Voght-Straße and park there or on Hochrad Straße, which is along the back of the Jenisch Park.