It’s been 11 months since I’ve done a Rate the Dress post. It’s just been an incredibly rubbish couple of years for me, and I haven’t had the mental focus needed to produce two well thought-out blog posts every week, which is what’s required for a consistent Rate the Dress + this not being an only Rate the Dress blog .
I’d really like to get back in to it, and I’m trying. I’m hoping that if I fake being OK, eventually my brain will remember how to actually be OK again.
So, what I’ve done is written not one, but FIVE rate the dress posts. Then all I need to do is tally up the points each week, and hopefully I’ll feel well enough at least one week to write another one, and get back on track! So, enjoy a RTD for the next five weeks, at least…
Last weeks (year’s) rating: a 1780s formal gown in embroidered silk
Remember that dress? It was inspired by the Angelica pattern launch, and featured elaborate embroidery and ruffled trim on a very restrained, formal silhouette. And most of you loooooooooved it. In fact, you loved it so much it came in at…
The Total: 9.8 out of 10
Which is basically perfect in Rate the Dress terms!
This week:
This was the dress that inspired me to get back in to Rate the Dress posts, because I think it has so many interesting elements to consider:
Evening dress, 1920s, Crepe chiffon over silk satin with lame ribbon appliqué and fine inserted edging, rhinestones, corded silk rosettes and gathered peach chiffon cascades sold by Augusta Auctions, June 2023
The three-dimensional bow applique! The mix of palest peach, darker peach, and touches of pink and blue.
Evening dress, 1920s, Crepe chiffon over silk satin with lame ribbon appliqué and fine inserted edging, rhinestones, corded silk rosettes and gathered peach chiffon cascades sold by Augusta Auctions, June 2023
The gathered panels of chiffon in darker peach, and the rhinestone trim.
Evening dress, 1920s, Crepe chiffon over silk satin with lame ribbon appliqué and fine inserted edging, rhinestones, corded silk rosettes and gathered peach chiffon cascades sold by Augusta Auctions, June 2023
It’s definitely very youthful. A young woman’s party dress that mixes Edwardian sweetness and attention to detail with playful 20s sensibilities.
Evening dress, 1920s, Crepe chiffon over silk satin with lame ribbon appliqué and fine inserted edging, rhinestones, corded silk rosettes and gathered peach chiffon cascades sold by Augusta Auctions, June 2023
What do you think? Is this the perfect flapper dress, in the truest sense of a flapper: a young girl testing out the world?
Evening dress, 1920s, Crepe chiffon over silk satin with lame ribbon appliqué and fine inserted edging, rhinestones, corded silk rosettes and gathered peach chiffon cascades sold by Augusta Auctions, June 2023
What do you think?
Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10
A reminder about rating — feel free to be critical if you don’t like a thing, but make sure that your comments aren’t actually insulting to those who do like a garment. Phrase criticism as your opinion, rather than a flat fact. Our different tastes are what make Rate the Dress so interesting. It’s no fun when a comment implies that anyone who doesn’t agree with it, or who would wear a garment, is totally lacking in taste.
As usual, nothing more complicated than a .5. I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment.
The detail popped up first, and I wasn’t convinced. When I saw the full photo, I loved it! The beautiful details harmonize so well, and it makes for a really lovely dress. 8.5
I totally agree! I saw the gathered trim and found it haphazard at best. But the total dress is lovely. I like the colors, the little flowers at the neck are sweet, I don’t care for the ones tacked on the shoulders though.
Overall, it’s lovely, I can see someone wearing it to lunch or a garden party. There’s some just a smidge off but I can’t put my finger on what.
I give it an 8.0
This is one of those dresses that I would never have worn, but my mother would have liked me to wear it!
I can see the charm, and the interesting features. The applique bow hovering just below the waist is rather lovely, the little rosettes, the lace above the bust, the rhinestone trim – all charming. And the delicate colour palette is very pleasing.
The gathered peach chiffon cascades, though, I find a wee bit much. Even for my imaginary demure and junior flapper. It’s the fluffy bit that sticks over at the top, I think. Maybe set the gathered top inside, cover join with ribbon, add some more bows? Not sure.
Lovely to have Rate the Dress back, and this is a sweet and frivolous dress to begin with. Your life has certainly been short on lightness and frivol, and mine has been a bit jaw-settingly earnest, too, so it is particularly nice to admire the chiffon.
7 out of 10
Glad to see rate the dress back.I like to say you need a full skirt to dance in and flounce out of a room in , and this looks just right for a young lady given to both , being at that age ….( I imagine her mother in the other dress , keeping a careful eye on her daughter,)
A very pretty dress in a lovely colour
8.5
When I saw the full dress I loved it, but the more I look at the details I am more hesitant. The panels of chiffon must have looked wonderful when dancing, but I think the top of them looks bulky. The colour makes me think that if it was a pale girl using the dress she would probably look like she was almost naked, except for the bows and the darker panels. Now risque and fun definitely, but I still don’t like it. (and don’t get me started on the fact that this is the exact colour of most bathing suits up here in the very north of Europe this year and how ugly it is on most people).
Still I will say 8,5/10 and stick with my first impression of really liking the dress.
I love it! I can just see the chiffon cascades flaring out as she danced and twirled. I think it still has the simplicity of line and all of the details are small and in excellent balance. A solid 9 from me.
Lovely to have this back! Hope you are on top of the world very soon.
Each feature on the dress is lovely, but together…. it’s not a sum of it’s parts.
The bow is angular, but the flowers are delicate and rounded.
The top is simple and subdued, but the cascades on the skirt are stark and loud.
It looks better from the back than it does from the front, maybe because four cascades are visible – having two giant cascades on the front looks odd.
4/10
Lovely details but I think my inbuilt dislike of orange is getting in the way of appreciating it as a whole. I wonder if the original peach of the dress has faded, because the contrast is so stark between the body of the dress and the panels, which almost look like an afterthought. Like they realized how see-thru the chiffon was and said “er, maybe we can’t show exactly this much leg. Let’s, idk, add something, or the girl’s mother is going to lose her mind when she picks up the order.”
pros: sweet details
cons: I can’t deal with the cascading panels!
6/10
While orange isn’t my color, I love this dress. The detailing is wonderful. I hadn’t noticed it at first glance. I wonder how much the orange panels contrasted when the dress was new. A slightly less dramatic contrast would improve the dress and perhaps it was less dramatic at the start. Still, I give it an 8.5.
i am delighted to see the “rate the dress” feature returning! but very sorry that its absence has been due to your having a less than delightful time in recent years. my sincere wishes for an improvement in whatever has been causing you grief or stress. the last several years have been a dumpster fire for me in multiple ways, so i do sympathise.
as to the dress…hmm. 20s frocks are a very mixed bag for me. some i love and many i do not. this one is in the latter category. it’s twee, even when i picture it on a young woman. it has bows and flowers and floof and it’s all a bit much for me. the contrasting shades of peach also don’t evoke my love, although i do think they might work better if the frock were shown over its underpinning slip. sometimes that can make a big difference in these sheer 20s dresses; they just look a bit ‘off’ when shown with no slip layer.
rating: 4/10 for the dress (but 10/10 for the return of this kind of post!)
Welcome back! I hope this means your life will be lovely for the foreseeable future, you deserve it!
I love the dress! It is that 1920s combination of attention to detail of the previous decade, and the frivolity and pushing the limits of the 20s. The panels are over the top, so typical of the 20s, yet the flower details make it demure as well. What fun!
10/10
Lovely to see Rate the Dress and even lovelier is that you’re feeling comfortable enough to bring it back for us! These years have been unbelievably difficult and I wish everyone peace and happiness.
This dress is very twee and very youthful. I can only see it on a preteen. The colors and the front drapes make it so for me, I’m not a fan.
5/10
I love 20’s dresses- I wouldn’t wear them myself, but they are so fun to look at! I vote 9 because it looks like it would be very fun to dance in.
9/10
I liked it a lot at a glance, and then I saw the detail of the gathered chiffon and… I’m less enthused. It feels rather clunky. And, worse, it feels like it’s definitely supposed to be a design detail and not just a random solution, but I don’t like it.
Also the back is rather boring in comparison, and I’m all for making the back just as fun as the front.
7/10
P.S. I’ve finally pinpointed it – the back even lacks the ribbon at the waist, which seems like probably the most logical and least cumbersom thing to carry over, if comfort while sitting down or anything like that is a concern. It’s very plain in comparison, and not even entirely coherent.
I also agree that it might look a lot better with a slip underneath.
First off, all the very best to you after a rough run, may the coming of springtime there bring good.
I rather like this dress. It can’t seem to decide between verticals and horizontal, but the trims are fetching and with the right hat and shoes on a girl with a sweet bob it would give that big-eyed innocent look so popular then.
The bodice cut is rather more shaped than I expected: there is a sort of narrowing and loosening around the waist, emphasized by the bow trim, that would make the dress hang less like a sack. Carried to the back, the bow trim would have been emphasized the derriere, so perhaps that is why they left it off. Still, that feels rather unfinished.
8 out of 10, with more for the cut than the trim
I love it! The lightness of the material keeps it from feeling overdone to me. A sweet frock for dancing 😉 9/10
I am really, really sorry you had such a hard time; thanks for still spending time on the blog and especially taking up “rate the dress” again! Cheers and be well!
NB: The dress. I don’t like it at all, there’s just too much going on: different pinks/rose hues; lots of artificial flowers. And bows. And wavy bits. And frilly bits. And ruchy bits.
I do hope that, had I been a flapper, I would have scandalized my Mama by asking for something a bit more plain.
I am very sorry to hear it’s been a couple of A Years, as a friend of mine would say, and I very much hope things start looking up soon.
I follow this blog via an RSS reader, and so don’t comment as much as I ought to, but please know that everything you share brightens up my day, and so I only want you to do the things that brighten up *your* day.
As for the dress — it’s rather like a stage dancing costume, isn’t it? The longer I look at it, the more the details fall out of harmony, but I’m convinced it looked wonderful twirling and flaring over a dancing body. At rest, though… it’s all a bit slipshod, especially those chunks of chiffon poking over the top of the line of stitching+trim. 6/10.
A lovely cloud of cotton candy (candy floss). As you say, for a young woman. The colors must have been so lovely when it was fresh. I don’t like the flowers on the poofs but admire the lace on the bodice. It does look a little patched together.
I’ve missed you and hope things continue to improve.
8/10
Love to see rate the dress back, sorry to hear about your bad times and wishing you all the best! I like the colours but not the way they are placed. I’m very sorry to say that but I can’t unsee it: it just looks like ritual murder. The poor victim is tied with a bow and orange blood is flowing from her decorated ritual wounds…
6/10
I’m so glad RTD is back! I’m also so sorry to hear you had a tough couple of years.
Now to Rate. The. Dress.
At first just seeing the details, I wasn’t on board, but somehow the whole thing works somehow. I don’t know that I could pull it off, no matter how my Mom insists I look good in peach, but those deep peach bits just work for me somehow.
8/10
Lovely to see this, I love these posts.
I’m a big fan of faking it til you make it, hope it works for you.
I am glad to see you are back! There are a lot of little things going on with this dress. They do seem to work together. I can imagine a young lady wearing this on a warm Summer’s evening to a party. That salmon color must have been popular during the 1920’s, as I have seen many photos of dresses in that color and I also have two in my vintage clothing collection. I give it a 9/10.
First, so sorry to hear that you’ve had a rough couple of years. Your content is so valuable and I love the photo shoots, they make me want to make a historical dress, if only to swan around my house in. Along with the navy blue suede 4 inch heels I almost bought during lockdown…not that I could walk in them, but I could admire them on my feet!
As for the dress, it kind of looks like whoever made it put everything that the customer wanted on it…so the customer was probably happy, but the whole isn’t particularly harmonious. 7/10
I’m glad to see Rate the Dress back, and I’m sorry the last couple of years have been so rough for you.
As for this dress, I would’ve loved to see this in action on the dance floor! I’m not a huge fan of the colour, and as others have noted, some of the details don’t quite feel finished, but overall it’s beautifully and quintessentially 1920s. 8/5/10
Ack, sorry…that was supposed to be 8.5/10, so you aren’t wondering what that rating means!
The way the darker orange panels are attached is really not working for me— it looks bulky and clumsy and hits at an awkward point. If they were a slightly different shape, or placed higher, or had different top finishing, then I think I’d like it better. A solid 7.5.
I’m glad that you are feeling like you have a little more energy. I have missed rate the dress and have been concerned about you.
I love this dress and think that it is absolutely darling and made for dancing and twirling. The colours make me think of everything summer. I love the cascades. At first I thought that they were long bits of fringe, over a relatively narrow skirt, but instead they look like they work like godets to give lots for space for long tango lunges, big slow steps in the foxtrot and kicks in the Charleston. I think that the decoration works well together and that it doesn’t seem fussy to me.
10/10
I honestly like the dress as a moving item, as it shows much nicer on the full model with part of the chiffon flying backwards. I would look dreadful in this color (I hate every year that the stores put out dull green, yellow and bright orange as the only choices for a season). But on the right coloring, this would look lovely.
10/10
10
Late, but I’ve been binge-watching Downton and that is the perfect Lady Rose dress. It’s TOTAL SUGAR FLUFF! And it would look great on a dance floor.
Not at all my style but perfect for its era.