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Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Silken Memories: This wedding dress at the Ainsley House was donated for display by Campbell resident Ida Yerkovich.
Here Come the Brides
The Ainsley House unveils an exhibit of vintage wedding gowns
By Sarah Gaffney
In 1935, buying a wedding dress was a nearly unimaginable hardship. It was the Great Depression and times were tough. For Campbell native Ida Yerkovich, buying her wedding dress meant scraping together $29.
"That was a lot of money," says Yerkovich, who has lived in her Alice Avenue home for more than six decades. "I don't remember what I paid for my veil. Maybe $8.95 ... bought it in Blum's store in downtown San Jose. It was a lovely store."
Yerkovich's wedding gown and 20 others are on display at the Campbell Historical Museum's "Sweet Memories: Brides of Yesteryear" exhibit at the Ainsley House in downtown Campbell. The gowns, representing trends in bridal fashions from 1840 to 1980, are exhibited throughout the 15 rooms of the historic 1925 home.
Bob Pedretti, director of the historical museum, conducted a sneak peek of the exhibit before its official opening last week. These dresses, and the shoes and jewels that accompany them, are an inspiration for anyone considering a vintage wedding theme. Plus, they're just plain fun to look at.
"Look at how tiny it is," says Pedretti, pointing to one of many dresses that look as if they belonged to someone 4 feet tall with a 15-inch waist. "We had to use a child's mannequin because it wouldn't fit any of the adult dress forms that we had."
Thin was in way back when and white was out. According to Pedretti, the nicest dress in the bride's closet was chosen for her wedding day. The exhibit features blue, gold and rust-colored bridal dresses worn to weddings in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
"They wore their very best Sunday dress for the wedding," explains Pedretti. "Until Victorian times, when [Queen] Victoria wore white, then, it became fashionable to wear white... we also had one that was plaid but it was so fragile we just couldn't bring it out."
The exhibit not only represents different styles of wedding attire, but also how rich and not-so-rich women spent their money on dresses.
"Here is a cotton one," says Pedretti, pointing out a plain white 1915 cotton and lace prairie-style dress that Laura Ingalls Wilder might have sewn for her big day. "It shows a simple style, for people who didn't have a lot of money, but, still, it had to be something sort of special."
Also on display is the 1920s wedding dress of Dorothy Ainsley Lloyd, daughter of the original Ainsley House owners, J.C. and Alcinda Ainsley. The delicate, short-skirted dress of silk and beads is so fragile it is displayed strewn across a bed, as if recently shed by the bride.
Exquisite as it is, the flapper-style frock wasn't Dorothy's first choice. Pedretti describes the dress' serendipitous start.
"They had ordered a wedding dress and went up to San Francisco to get it," says the museum director. "They got the dress and brought it into the taxi ... and went to shop for something else. The taxi driver went to get a smoke and when they came back the dress was gone."
The quick-thinking Mrs. Ainsley took her daughter into a nearby shop. They bought the silk and white beaded dress right off the rack.
The exhibit comes full circle with Dorothy Ainsley Lloyd's granddaughter. Lucinda's dress, a full-skirted, snow-white gown, was worn at her wedding at the Ainsley House in 1980.
Yerkovich, who also loaned her mother's 1910 handmade, embroidered wedding dress to the exhibit, is amazed, but not surprised, at the astronomical amounts people spend on weddings these days.
"The values are different today," says the octogenarian. "Look at what people earn."
'Sweet Memories: Brides of Yesteryear' will run until June 30 at the Ainsley House at 300 Grant St. Guided tours are noon to 4 p.m., Thursday through Sunday. For information, call 408.866.2118.
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Campbell, California
