Wallis Simpson, 1937

Wallis Simpson married the former Edward VIII on June 3, 1937, at the Château de Candé in France, six months after he gave up the throne to marry her. Her Mainbocher dress is a long, narrow column with a nipped-in waist and a gathered bodice set with tiny buttons, the opposite of a royal ballgown. The fabric was a pale blue known as Wallis blue, after her. She gave the dress to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the color has since faded toward beige.