"WEDDING GOWNS FOR LIZ" - Photoplay 1962

It was 60 years ago today that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton married in Montreal after a couple of years spent on the front pages in Hollywood's greatest romantic scandal.

via oldhollywoodpage

One of my guilty pleasures is when royals or celebrities get engaged and magazines speculate on what the wedding dress is going to look like. When William and Kate got engaged in late 2010, Hello! did a similar feature with a wedding dress that is still imprinted on my brain, that’s how gorgeous it was (although, it must be said, Kate didn’t wear anything close to it).

my screenshot

Needless to say, when I stumbled upon this Photoplay article from the July 1962 issue, with three designers putting together ideas for a wedding dress for La Liz to wear for a potential marriage to Richard Burton—even though, as the article starts, “As we go to press, Richard Burton’s wife, Sybil, says she will never divorce him.”—I was hooked. And, I have the benefit of the future: I knew what Liz wore on her wedding day, so I could see who nailed it!

You know how there are historical events you wish you were around for? Watching the Burton-Taylor scandal play out in real-time is one of mine. I guess the closest I’ll get is Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie-Jennifer Anniston, but the drama of Burton-Taylor is unparalleled!

Here’s a recap, according to Photoplay, of what was public knowledge at the time of this article:

1.      Sybil Burton was asking Richard for $1.5 million to divorce.

2.     Eddie Fisher was asking Liz for $1 million from her Cleopatra money to divorce.

3.     Liz and Richard were holed up at the Dorchester Hotel in London “talking to no one but each other.”

The writing was on the wall, and everyone knew a wedding wouldn’t be far off, so Photoplay did what it does best: fanned the flames. They spoke with three designers: Sylvan Rich, Lilly Dacha and Anthony Pettoruto to see what designs they had in mind for a Burton-Taylor wedding; and had them illustrated by Jon Whitcomb.

Here’s what they came up with:

Of the three, Sylvan Rich’s design is the most traditionally bridal. It almost looks like Liz’s wedding dress from that brief, ill-fated marriage to Nicky Hilton. The most interesting part, to me, is the veil and headpiece. I definitely wouldn’t choose this for my wedding, and it doesn’t look like something Liz would’ve worn at this stage in her life.

Rich also used his platform to trash Liz’s fashion sense, saying that she was never “set up as a fashion image, an exponent of fashion,” and blamed it on the way movies were made. He said stars like Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo, of the ‘30s, influenced fashion through their films, but Liz, “will not be remembered for her clothes.” 

And you can’t blame him, either, since it’s true. How many iconic outfits can you name besides the Burton wedding dress or the white cocktail dress from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?

So his wedding dress is the most simplistic, and here’s the reason: Sylvan thought that her “clothes should be a complement to her beauty and her natural attributes rather than something that will detract from these attributes. So, it should be with her wedding dress. A complement and a compliment.”

He thought that any potential gown should be simple so as not to distract from La Liz’s natural and glamorous beauty, and not “with the fact that Miss Taylor has been married before.”

His design is traditional and white, but in an off-white or antique white satin, featuring “a gown cut simply, to fit the figure closely. With the back flowing from the shoulders and ending in a train—long—about four yards long.”

The headpiece and veil—my favourite part, remember—made from antique lace. “As a symbol of—well, the richness of the woman. A lovely headdress—diadem-shaped—from which hangs a simple veil of silk tulle.”

Sylvan said he’d round out the look with simple pearl jewellery, camellias, and perhaps a prayer book to give her something to do with her hands. It’s so striking in its simplicity, but it would have never worked for the most glamorous (read: scandalous) woman on the planet at that time. 

The next designer to submit an idea was Lilly Dache, a French designer who got more of the vamp and glam and drama of La Liz than Sylvan:

“I saw first the headdress. A hooded cape, really. Which would cover the lower half of the face. Because she must be a little coy, Elizabeth. A little demure. A little afraid of the world, almost ashamed to the world because of all the publicity of this past year. Except, of course, that the eyes will show—just those beautiful violet melting eyes, those mysterious eyes— and those eyes will say, ‘Yes, I do care— but still I am myself!’  The effect is pristine in feeling. In fact, to add to the pristine, we will fasten the cape at the side of the face with a bouquet of lilies- of-the-valley. Yes?  For a note of ingenuity. And, to contrast, on the other side of the face an earring will show. Very large. And loaded with jewels. She’s mad about jewels, as you know. Jewels—she adores them. So—gold and yellow diamonds.”

The dress, cocktail-length, would have been orange silk chiffon with an Empire cut that laid over knee-length leopard print pants that peek out from behind it. And it had to be leopard print, according to Dache, who said, “To signify the whole Roman affair with Burton. When she wore the leopard so often. In the restaurants, the nightclubs, the cafés… Of course, there was nothing discreet about the way she wore it then.”

Dache’s reasoning: La Liz was never quiet about this love affair, so why should a wedding be an occasion for quiet? “I think the word spoiled is wrong in her case. I think she is not spoiled… Endowed by God with everything—form, magnificent face—everything— so that she is bound to be unique . . . different . . . apart from the rest.” 

The final design was submitted by Anthony Pettoruto, and it’s my favourite—the one I’d choose—because it’s yellow and demure, but there’s also drama there.

In fact, Pettoruto said that he wouldn’t fathom anything traditionally bridal for La Liz because, “I just don’t go for traditional or white in this case because Liz Taylor’s Liz Taylor—and she should look as glamorous and sexy as possible, wedding or any other time.”

He called his design the ‘Cleopatra’ wedding dress to represent this time in her life: young, gorgeous, glamorous; it was the film she was most associated with; and why wouldn’t she want to honour the film that brought her and Burton together?

“Color? I’d make it yellow. Yellow on yellow. I don’t know why. It’s just the first color that comes to mind for Liz. Though I must admit—for a moment there —I did think of pink first. But then I figured that was just a little bit too cliché.”

Pettoruto added a headdress to lend itself to the Cleopatra aesthetic, and designed on a décolleté dress because he felt her bosom was one of her best attributes.

He then spent the rest of his interview saying that Liz didn’t have much fashion sense, just like Sylvan, and talked about the ‘real’ fashion plates like Audrey Hepburn, Princess Grace, and Jacqueline Kennedy.

“But with Liz—with all her money, with all her exposure—she just puts something on, it seems. With a defiance that goes against that inner sweetness I feel about her. As if to say to a world that’s always chiding her. ‘I don’t care what I look like—because I’m too confident of my beauty to care!’”

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Here's what Elizabeth Taylor actually wore on her wedding day:

via British Vogue

When Elizabeth Taylor married Richard Burton on March 15, 1964, she wore a marigold yellow dress by Cleopatra's costume designer, Irene Sharaff, with an 18-carat emerald brooch: a gift from Richard during the filming of Cleopatra.