MARINA EERRIE: Probing the Icon of the Bloody Bride and Campaigning for Empowered Brides

Italian based slow fashion brand, MARINA EERIE, has been known for its romantic and hyper-feminine couture gowns. Their style takes inspiration from historical fashion such as Victorian and Ancient Roman style. Lately, the brand has been known to also churn out custom pieces that embody the “Bloody Bride” archetype, where a bride’s iconic white dress is intertwined with red embroidery and beading to intentionally resemble dripping blood.

The bloody bride iconography is often found in horror movies such as Ready or Not and Annabelle Comes Home. One of its most prominent iterations was also featured in the horror film history cornerstone, The Blood Spattered Bride. Much like the character archetype, MARINA EERRIE pieces are meant to be a subversion of the age-old gender roles assigned to wedded women—one who sees them as meek and docile domestic beings. The bloody bride is in fact as another layer of the final girl trope, the last woman standing in a horror movie, the one brave enough to overcome not only the patriarchy but also the otherworldly monsters. In the case of the bloody brides, these characters and dresses are subverting society’s expectations of married women, empowering them and showing that they too have agency and unabashed power. This is why bloody bride designs by MARINA EERRIE are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals of Gender Equality and Responsible Consumption and Production.

To understand the bloody bride character archetype better, one could analyze the trope as presented in the 2019 horror-comedy, Ready or Not. The film is led by Samara Weaving (As seen in The Babysitter) who plays Grace Le Domas. Grace is a woman from humble beginnings who marries into the wealthy Le Domas family of conglomerates. On her wedding night, still dressed in her wedding gown, Grace is invited to play a game of hide and seek with the Le Domas family. Truth be told, the game is part of the family’s pact with the devil, that requires them to hunt down and kill a woman who marries into their family every other generation in exchange for wealth, power and fame.

Much like typical final girls, Grace becomes a bloody bride who uses her own skills, knowledge and life experiences to outwit and kill members of the Le Domas family instead. The film ends with her smoking a cigarette on the front porch of the Le Domas home, her wedding gown soaked red head-to-toe with the blood of the Le Domas family. She had come out on top, winning their twisted game of hide and seek and has her life to prove for it.

Grace’s story, and the stories of other bloody brides that have been embodied in MARINA EERRIE dresses, are empowering narratives that put married women on top. It imagines a state of being where brides are able to take down those who try to harm them. In reality, women and girls who become brides have to suffer through so much in the world. A World Health Organization study published in 2021 found that one in three women experience intimate partner violence, often done within the institution of marriage. The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has also estimated that at least 650 million girls under 18 are married off, significantly reducing their chances of receiving adequate education and financial freedom. 

With their livelihoods hinged on their partners, child brides are prone to be stuck in abusive relationships. This is where MARINA EERRIE’s dresses come in, they campaign for a better future where brides are empowered; living free from intimate partner violence and constraints of the patriarchy that puts their perspectives aside in a marriage.

Find out more about fashion design by MARINA EERRIE and their other initiatives by checking their Instagram on @marina.eerrie.