Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Art drives a stake into bridal tradition

Should you see a woman submerged inside Burrard Inlet, her gown pooling below the surface, restrain your self before jumping in.

She does not need to be rescued.

It is just another bride trashing her wedding ceremony outfit.

The phenomenon, in which brides come across creative ways to obtain wet and dirty in their gowns, sometimes destroying them, may well be the 1st art-driven stake in the heart of the mega-wedding industrial complex.

Trash the Dress photo shoots are an increasingly common part from the marriage ceremony pictures package, almost like saying "I Do, but I didn't take it that seriously."

"I encourage couples to trash the apparel," says Katya Nova, a Vancouver photographer. "It is really a wonderful way for them to rebel against the notion that they need to just stand there for a photo that will sit on their parents' dresser."

She draws the line at danger, though.

"One bride asked me to set her on fire," states Nova. "I had to say no to that. I have insurance, but I do not want anyone to obtain hurt."

Vancouver newlywed Polina Lussier has "no regrets" about the trash shoot she did with Nova a few days after her marriage ceremony.

"There was no restraint," stated Lussier, who wheeled around in a purchasing cart and jumped in a fountain in her $1,300 apparel with new husband, Justin.

The images from that day are her favourites.

Barbara Mitchell a professor of sociology at Simon Fraser University states that traditionally, the white gown represents purity.

The requisite white gown may perhaps also represent "some type of repressive, constrained uniform that represents conformity."

The typical price of a wedding day dress these days is additional than $1,000 (not including shoes, veil and accessories); the average wedding day costs far more than $20,000 and, according to Wedding Bells magazine, couples are spending a lot more in 2010 than in 2009.

The white apparel, with its formality, its ruched and binding bodices, has become the most iconic modern day symbol of "the wedding ceremony," if not the marriage.

On well-known reality television shows which include Say Yes towards the Gown, "consultants" push over-the-top gowns like car salesmen gunning for the close.

"This trend may possibly be an expression of a symbolic tearing away of old tradition, a modern bride's rejection of some of the repressive aspects in the institution," says Mitchell.

John Michael Cooper will be the American photographer who launched the trend, which he calls "anti-bridal." Cooper, who counts Richard Avedon and John Singer Sargent among his inspirations, had grown frustrated with the repressive conventions of wedding day images. At the time, his day job was photographing brides that churned by means of a marriage ceremony mill on the Vegas strip.

For Cooper, setting a bride on fire was an act of rebellion -- it was also the beginning of incorporating a high-fashion, high-art sensibility to the operate of wedding images. "Brides do not dream in wedding day albums. They dream in magazines," stated Cooper.

"This will not be about sitting down and thinking, 'How can I destroy a gown?'" mentioned Cooper. "I started wanting to do anything cool, one thing unexpected."

Cooper's work attracts on ideas from classical artwork, history and literature (Ophelia, Joan of Arc), pop culture (bride and groom as Bonnie and Clyde) and photojournalism, but a single factor is a given: "It's about no boundaries," stated Cooper.

"You might as well take it to a grave instead of a studio."

Nova, who draws inspiration from Cooper's do the job, also would like to push the boundary beyond just trashing the apparel.

"For me you will find three avenues of fusion: photojournalism, standard wedding day photography and style. I would never do the exact same thing with one particular client as with a different."

Moments, such as Justin Lussier plunking his new wife inside the buying cart, are best when they are purely spontaneous.

What Nova would like to celebrate inside photographs just isn't the act of marriage, but the love and affection between a couple.

The word "trash" in slang parlance doesn't mean to destroy so much as it means to get pleasure from, adds Nova.

"The marriage day can be so hectic for the bride," says Nova. "This can be a way for her to wear this apparel again, and relax and get pleasure from it."

Nova, who grew up in Eastern Europe, states she encourages "trash" sessions that keep the apparel intact.

"Where I come from, trashing something so stunning is unheard of," she says. "Brides have worked so challenging to pick the apparel. This is the one time they don't have to feel badly for wanting to look wonderful."