If you haven’t seen Abby Kingston Curtis of Bethlehem’s 120-year-old wedding dress yet, you truly are missing out. After Abby’s story and photos of her dress went out on the internet, she became not only a national but also an international social media celebrity. Her dress, a family heirloom that has been worn by ten family members before her, was handmade for her great-great-grandmother, Mary Lowry, in 1895. That’s right, it is actually 120 years old, and the dress is certainly a spectacle to see.
The top of the two-piece Victorian dress sits just below Abby’s collarbone, with the straight line of fabric extending out in each direction to beautifully ornate, billowing sleeves. The design of the original sleeves is known as a leg of mutton sleeve. The bodice and skirt combination hasn’t lasted this long without some upkeep and alterations, but the dress’s core structure is largely the same as it was when it was first made. The most obvious change was shortening the train from cathedral-length to a more manageable length. Additionally, Abby’s great-great-grandmother had an 18-inch waist, and that has been changed over the course of the past 120 years to suit each bride.
Abby knew that she wanted to wear the dress, but its location wasn’t known. Finding the dress wasn’t necessarily the easiest mission for Abby and her mother Leslie, but when they finally found its whereabouts Abby was over-the-moon with excitement. When they saw the dress itself, her excitement turned to a bit of worry.
“Not only was it a hideous brown color, but a crop top! I thought there was no way I would ever be able to wear the dress,” Abby told Refinery29. There were unexpected rips and tears and an unfortunate amount of discoloration on the dress, which is not what a soon-to-be bride wants to see. She, her mother and her husband-to-be, Jason Curtis, were dismayed. Help was shortly on the way, though, and thanks to the hard work of vintage dress expert Deborah LoPresti of Easton, the dress was restored to the marvelous state that can be seen in viral photos.
Deborah received the project by way of word of mouth—a client was at a party that Leslie Kingston was at and, after hearing about Abby’s dress dilemma, referred the Kingstons to LoPresti. She has been restoring dresses since the 1980s, but was slightly daunted by the state of the heirloom dress.
“When I looked at the dress…oh my goodness. It was not in good shape,” LoPresti says. She also noted that each bride was traditionally allowed to do whatever she wanted to the dress. Instead of cleaning the dress, they would just shorten it to remove the dirty portions of the train. They also resorted to patchwork instead of fixing holes.
“Throughout the gown, where there were holes, they put all different types of lace. They didn’t repair anything. They just covered it up,” LoPresti notes. She and her team did what they could and, eventually, they were able to restore the dress’s color and to remove the patchwork lacework and replace it with original material. “We decided to use the back of the sleeves to repair the other holes on the bodice, and we made a new sleeve.”
LoPresti’s alterations took five dress fittings, six months and a total of 200 hours to complete, but the results are striking. She was able to remove the brown staining and restore the dress to a champagne color while also adjusting the sleeves and the bodice to complement Abby’s body. Along with dry cleaning services courtesy of Gary Harpe’s Prestige Dry Cleaners in Lopatcong, the dress looks better than ever.
“It was a privilege to have the opportunity to work on this dress,” says LoPresti. “I didn’t realize going into it exactly how much work it would be. You just don’t know.”
That hard work paid off. The way that the dress fits Abby is a thing of art, and she’s unabashedly happy with the results. This dress, one that she clearly adores so much, was not always appreciated by Abby’s ancestors.
After being worn by Kingston’s great-great-grandmother, the dress took roughly 50 years of off time. Her daughters had no interest in wearing it, and it wasn’t worn again until 1946. Various family members wore the dress throughout the years and, in 1977, Abby’s mother, Leslie Kingston, wore the dress. Abby’s version of the dress is 90-or-so percent original, and with every wearer its intrigue does nothing but increase. Its intrigue also seems to increase with every view it receives on the web.
Not everyone saw the wedding dress online before the big day, though. Abby was a little bit worried that her fiancé (now husband) would happen upon photos of her dress somewhere in the realm of Facebook or Twitter. And, as many know, this is a big no-no when it comes to wedding traditions. In September of 2015 amidst the whirlwind of blogs and Tweeters posting pictures of the heirloom dress, Curtis was returning from a trip to South Africa.
“I called him and said, ‘Delete your Facebook, don’t answer any text messages, things are happening,’” Abby told the Huffington Post. Curtis agreed to turn a blind eye to all forms of social media until their October wedding date. It was a smart move, too, because as stunning as the dress appears in photos on the internet, it was certain to have made a much greater impact on Curtis after days and days of hype without any clue as to how the dress looked.
On the wedding day, Deborah LoPresti says that Abby wore the restored dress for cocktail hour and some photo ops. It is in a fragile state, and as it has been moved around since the wedding it has been handled with the utmost care. The dress will be better preserved now that it’s in the hands of Abby. It will live in a cedar chest until it is worn again or placed in a museum. There are musings that one of Leslie’s cousin’s daughters thinks she may want to wear the dress herself. Keep your eyes tuned to social media channels in the coming years—you never know if this work of mastery will pop back up, and when it does you won’t want to miss it.
Join the Sigal Museum on Saturday, February 21 for your chance to see the famous, 120-year-old wedding gown on display as part of the "Here Come the Brides" exhibition. The event will run from noon to 4 p.m. and will also give you the opportunity to tour the rest of the museum.
Deborah LoPresti | 1828 Northampton St., Easton (By Appointment Only) | 610.253.7333 | deborahlopresti.com
