She is only 25 years old and has more than 140 pieces of wedding attire in her collection. Juraj Furo comes from Považská Bystrica and already in his childhood he was enchanted by period photographs in which the groom and his bride were immortalized. Later, it became a collector's passion. He is currently the first and youngest collector of contemporary wedding fashion with the established project "Bride of the Past". Juraj told us more in an interview.

1. First, introduce yourself to the readers of the Trenčín region portal. Who are you and how did you get into collecting? Did you know right away that you want to make a collection of just old wedding dresses?

As a little boy, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents in Púchov. My grandfather led me from an early age to respect our ancestors, traditions, craftsmanship and handicrafts, which I especially valued and discovered and admired especially in the beauties of period textiles, antiques and the Christmas period. My grandparents and I went to the cottage and spent family time in the magical surroundings of the surrounding meadows, forests and slopes. I was inspired by this environment of the Slovak beauty of our region, antique objects inherited for generations, which connect me with our feature conversations, reflections, stories and memories of photographs of old family albums.

I have long liked period photographs and I was fascinated by the beauty of the stylized capture of the "bride and groom" and the subtle retouching of graphite tones of studio mystery. In the past, wedding photography was the most common type of photography for family albums, as this most important day in the life of the two provided many times the only possible opportunity for the "eternal immortalization" of ancestors in cabinets and photographs.

When I was 9 years old, I found the wedding costume of my great-grandmother, which was issued in 1934. After seventy years, I cleaned, repaired and ironed the white costume with black embroidery of the stylized flora of the Púchov valley. He later arranged for a tailor's mannequin with a long tulle veil and a rosemary wreath, next to which hung a large framed colored photograph of a couple of my great-grandparents. These were my first wedding dresses in the collection and the first stimulus of the exhibition of the old wedding attire of the collection, the activity of which dates back to 2004 and continues its main idea to this day.

I became the first and youngest collector of contemporary wedding fashion with the established project "Bride of the Past". Today, the collection's archive contains 145 pieces of wedding clothing and dozens of pieces of veils, gloves, pumps and other wedding accessories from the 20th century.

2. Do they all come only from the Trenčín region or do you also have foreign collection items?

The private collection of old wedding attire contains period originals of wedding dresses, costumes, costumes and wedding sets of brides from the era of Czechoslovakia, from the picturesque countries of Slovakia, Bohemia and Moravia. There are more than 20 old wedding dresses and accessories from the Trenčín region in the collection. Wedding dresses resp. the wedding dress, which comes to the collection, comes from the first and second republics of Czechoslovakia and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. With my work as a collector, owner of a private archive, I study Czechoslovak wedding fashion and the archiving of dresses worn at weddings, especially in Czechoslovakia (until 1992/1993).

The influx and outflow of fashion tendencies, inspirations, trends and styles were constantly changing, in the last century brides longed for foreign wedding dresses or materials, which came mainly from the surrounding countries of the former Czechoslovakia, especially from Hungary, Russia, Germany, Austria but also from America or Britain. If the brides did not travel for the dress, the dress arrived for the brides sent to them by their family or acquaintance. Later, the dress came to the republic as a foreign limited garment, especially after 1985. The collection is thus enriched with wedding dresses from abroad, which, however, were worn by ladies at marriages in Czechoslovakia, creating a contrast and diversity of fashion clothing of our brides of the last century in the form of domestic and imported women's wedding fashion.

3. What is your oldest piece and what is the rarest?

The oldest piece of the collection dates from 1900 from the time of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, from Upper Hungary. Rare for me are all wedding clothes and accessories, which I own and respectfully keep in the archive for the next decades as a historical legacy of Czechoslovak fashion and tailoring of national companies, cooperatives, tailoring salons, fashion halls and later boutiques. Wedding dresses prove to us the art, dexterity, quality, customs and traditions of the regions, love and respect, fashion tendencies, materials as well as cuts of ancient times, the times of our ancestors. All archived old wedding dresses as well as fashion accessories are the rarest and most beautiful for me.

4. Do you intend to create an exhibition or offer your pieces to museums?

In the future, I plan to create a dignified exhibition of wedding attire, which will bear the name of the project "Bride of the Past", which I founded in order to save and archive the wedding beauties of our Czechoslovak brides of the past. Over the years, I have managed to save several dozen wedding dresses from being thrown away or burned. Through active activities, the archive managed to return the dress to its original beauty and preserve its historical, artistic, emotional and financial value in the depository. I think it would be a great pity to lose the beauty of Czechoslovak fashion, which leaves us with the stories, memories and spirit of the history of our country hidden in the folds of lace and the softness of tulle veils, symbolizing the marriage bond.

Wedding dresses from the collection are not borrowed or sold, as it is a period archive material and in the future a museum exhibit. It would not be possible for our wedding dresses to be able to last for decades in undisturbed beauty with regular numerous wear, borrowing and cleaning. For these reasons, they are carefully preserved with the idea of a dignified own exhibition and museum, which I would like to locate in Trenčín, which has long been considered the Slovak Paris, our "City of Fashion" and discreet elegance.

5. Do you also know the owners of the given collection items?

Dresses in the archive are recorded in the catalogs under their serial number with the address or other contact to the owner. In addition to the wedding dress, I also keep the provided wedding photographs, announcements, congratulations and letters with their wedding story, so that the origin of the dedicated wedding dresses in the collection is thoroughly archived. For privacy reasons, I can't disclose the names or addresses of former wedding dress owners.

6. How did the dresses in the past differ the most from the current ones?

The past is a very broad concept and even this moment of answer becomes a certain past after reading. History will give us many answers to our questions, you just have to be thoughtful, persistent and respectful. The wedding attire of the past is preserved in its beauties and the limits brought by fashion, and it becomes valued by our subjective view. As a collector and a person who has been devoting himself to contemporary fashion and current events in the world of fashion and styling for several years, I see the distinctive character and beauty of individual stages of fashion tendencies, influences and trends of the decade. It is necessary to understand fashion and take it as it is, has been and will be. Many people, many beauties. However, history has shown us the perseverance of handicrafts, the quality of materials and the tailoring craft, especially in the wedding fashion, which has long been the rarest and most valuable in a woman's life.

Today, wedding dresses differ only in a certain need not to own a foreign model - a wedding gown with a label "Made in" and the former Czechoslovak or today's work of Slovak and Czech designers and tailoring salons has not been fully supported since 1989/1990. Today, elements of vintage style appear in wedding fashion, which with its details of the material and its modification, decoration, cut, styling or bouquet weave refers to the dream beauties of former epochs. The bride's special taste is still reflected today in the beauty of her white or colorful dress with the spirit of tradition and modernity.

Since childhood, I have been dedicated to fashion, its development and stylized changes of clothing, as well as the interest of the wedding moment. I had the honor to participate in several preparations and planning of the wedding day and styling of my honored acquaintances "brides of the present", which reflected the long-forgotten traditions of our "brides of the past" such as the once-used "brooch dedication" or "bouquet of nine flowers" and other.

7. In conclusion, what would you like to tell the readers of the Trenčín region?

Through my work as a collector, I try to provide a home for all the wedding dresses of our brides of the past, which should one day be forgotten. I am pleased that many ladies or their relatives donate clothes to the collection in order to preserve the memory of their family. The collection includes long and short dresses, lace and polyester, colored and white (from 1900-1993). With the collection I give them love and a chance for the second dignified life they deserve.

I plan to continue collecting and my project idea. Let us preserve the beauty of the wedding moment and the memory of our "Brides of the Past" through a collection of old wedding dresses and accessories together and forever. If you are interested, you can contact me at: nevesta.minulosti@gmail.com, instagram.com/nevesta_minulosti or through the Trenčín region newsroom.

In Trenčín, 4.3.2021

Text: MT