Diane Price's wedding dress

“I looked in the mirror and I thought: gosh! Is that me? …. I think it hit me then, I felt quite nervous, I thought: I’m going to be married in this!
A wedding dress is a very special dress, and vestiges of the nineteenth century transformative effects of marriage for a woman remain in the power of the garment. 

In the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, home dressmaking was an important domestic skill that kept a family clothed and enabled people to make more style choices.

Good quality and stylish “off the peg” clothing was not always readily available, and was often expensive.

During the two world wars emphasis on thrift and “make do and mend” helped keep dressmaking in the repertoire of an able housewife, whatever her class. However, even the most competent of dressmakers would often shrug the responsibility of making their own, or a loved one’s wedding dress.

Diane Price, née Hill, was married on 27th August 1963 at St. Peter’s, Halliwell. Diane’s mother and aunt were competent dressmakers, and made her bridesmaids’ dresses, but neither tackled the wedding dress. Diane recalls:

"I remember my mother saying, “I want you to have a wedding dress that you’ll remember” …. She wasn’t a controlling sort of woman, my mother, she was quiet really, but she wanted this to be a memorable day."

The wedding dress was a special gift to Diane from her mother.

Mrs Heaton, also known as Poppy Hinds, was known for her memorable dresses. Diane explains:

"I think the reason that I chose Poppy Hinds was she was the name that was synonymous with bridal dresses at the time. We didn’t have boutiques like they have now, bridal centres, nothing like that. You could go to Kendal’s if you wanted to buy a dress."

"I think you were influenced by your peers and what other people told you, and other people had said that she made beautiful dresses, which she did. And they were beautiful inside as well, you know, the way they were finished off inside."

Mrs Heaton's single mindedness

However, as Diane discovered, part of Heaton’s success was that she was quite single minded when it came to design:

I had asked her when I went with my mother, I said:

"“I would like a straight dress really”. Very elegant I wanted it. And I would like to get married in Smithills chapel…. “Oh no” she said, “no, no. It’s too small”.  You see you couldn’t exhibit your dress; you couldn’t show your dress off properly there."

"I have discussed this with Margaret Park, I said “I don’t remember having a choice really in what I wore.” She said, “Well you wouldn’t…. She knew what was in vogue and she would say, We’ll do it like this and this” … So my bridesmaids had straight dresses, and mine sort of went slightly out with a train incorporated in the dress."

"I was very pleased with it, I was delighted with it, but it wasn’t what I had in mind when I set off."

In the final fitting Diane did realise she had a dress that would be memorable:

"I do remember the actual final fitting as clearly as it were yesterday…. I looked in the mirror and I thought: gosh! Is that me? I was quite pleased with the finished result …. I think it hit me then, I felt quite nervous, I thought: I’m going to be married in this!"

Times have changed. No one today could corner the market in the way that Heaton had done in Bolton by the late 1950s and 1960s. As Diane explains:

"I don’t think these days a bride would have accepted everything [but then] you sort of thought, well, she knows best."