Mainbocher created Wallis Simpson’s 1937 wedding dress for her marriage to the Duke of Windsor.
The American designer Mainbocher, born Main Rousseau Bocher, made the streamlined blue dress for Simpson’s wedding to the former King Edward VIII. Its unusual blue-gray shade became closely associated with her and was later known as “Wallis blue.” The dress reflected the elegant, pared-back fashion of the late 1930s rather than the voluminous bridal shapes often associated with royal weddings.
The couple married at the Château de Candé in France on 3 June 1937. Edward had abdicated the British throne in December 1936 so that he could marry Simpson, a divorced American woman.
A common mix-up is calling the dress white or attributing it to another Parisian couturier. Its muted blue color and Mainbocher label are central details in its place in wedding-fashion history.