All posts tagged: 1880s

Rate the Dress: Red ribbons, 1884

I’m very sorry for completely dropping the ball on the blog for the last two weeks.  Some unexpected things came up in the run-up to Costume College, and blogging was one thing I just didn’t get to. So, quite late, the total score for the Lucile lingerie frock: a rather disappointing 7.5 out of 10.  Too many of you thought it was a bit limp, and had slightly weird design features, or was just lacking in overall oomph. This week’s Rate the Dress is partly inspired by all the amazing Victorian costumes I saw at Costume College, and partly carrying on the neutrals with ribbons theme of the not-so-popular Lucile lingerie frock: This 1884 House of Worth 2nd-bustle era gown many use three textures of silk fabrics (faille, satin and organza) in the same serene shade of stone, with touches of cream lace, but the deep red ribbons, rather than the sweet pastels of Lucile’s confection, provide colour and contrast Like the Lucile gown, Worth’s reception gown combines many different forms of textile manipulation, but …

Rate the Dress: ca 1880s precision pleats & points

Last week’s Rate the Dress was a 1910s lingerie frock with lace and embroidery embellishments.  And well, a LOT of you didn’t like it.  You didn’t think the different shades of white worked together, nor did the different textures of lace and embroidery.  But those of you who did like it, loved it.  Almost 20% of the ratings were perfect 10s, which is pretty darn good (but there were also two 2s, which is really bad…)  So, with a lot of mixed feelings, the dress got a mixed rating of 7.1 out of 10. This ca. 1880s dress  makes slight use of lace, in the form of a crisp lace jabot, which is echoed in colour and shape in the lace-like motifs of the trim (which may actually be lace – my very minimal Italian consists of  knowing all the basic textile names, and google translate isn’t even that good, so all I could tell from the description was lace was mentioned a lot!) that frames the bodice and the tiers of the skirt. What …

Rate the Dress: a red & white striped 1880s ensemble

Sometimes I get bored and stressed doing Rate the Dress, and feel like calling it off, and sometimes there aren’t many responses, but then we have weeks like last week, where Rate the Dress triggers fascinating discussions on how the garment is displayed, and if/which display is more correct, and how you can tell when a dress was displayed based on the style of display (which implies that we often aren’t really getting a true ‘period’ look at a garment much of the time), and it’s all well worth it. So, whether or not you loved the 1780s yellow chinoserie frock from last week, I think we can call it a success.  At 8.5 out of 10 though, it was pretty successful in the aesthetic respect too though! For this weeks Rate the Dress, I wanted to pick an outfit that might have been worn with an Olivia bonnet, so I went rummaging amongst my saved links to 1880s frocks, and instead of finding something to pair with an Olivia bonnet, I got distracted and …