This 1947 wedding dress is stunning even without knowing the backstory of the fabric from which it's made.
This wedding dress was made from a nylon parachute that saved Maj. Claude Hensinger during World War II.In August 1944, Hensinger, a B-29 pilot, and his crew were returning from a bombing raid over Yowata, Japan, when their engine caught fire. The crew was forced to bail out. Suffering from only minor injuries, Hensinger used the parachute as a pillow and blanket as he waited to be rescued. He kept the parachute that had saved his life. He later proposed to his girlfriend Ruth in 1947, offering her the material for a gown.
Ruth wanted to create a dress similar to one in the movie Gone with the Wind. She hired a local seamstress, Hilda Buck, to make the bodice and veil. Ruth made the skirt herself; she pulled up the strings on the parachute so that the dress would be shorter in the front and have a train in the back. The couple married July 19, 1947.
Via BoingBoing.
This is an amazing story and simply one of a kind dress.
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I don't believe that the parachute was made of nylon, but silk. Even in Italy the wives of the paratroopers at the end of the war were the clothes with the fabric of parachutes ; parachutes made of silk !
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A charming dress and a charming story!
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