Last week I showed Élisabeth Alexandrine in a mad hat and a bizarre fabric dress and a robe.  Many of you found the hat just wee bit weird, but the suggestion of the outfit as a masquerade costume for Nanny Ogg tilted the balance in its favour (and besides, it was rich and elegant and fashion forward), and the rating came in at exactly 8.5 out of 10. This week’s Rate the Dress was chosen primarily because the mannequin and presentation are strong contenders for the creepiest costume photos ever.  I’m not sure it  quite beats the staging of the  plunging Regency frock for dreadfulness, but I could equally see it as a Dr Who villain! So yeah, no points for the mannequin.  But what do you think of the riding habit with its gold trim and high standing collar?  The gigot sleeves and back pleated skirt?  Perfect sartorial elegance for a day with equines, or too stiff and formal? Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10.

Usually I think it is silly to like or dislike a Rate the Dress based on how it would look on you, but I found I could only like last week’s very  decollate  1810s frock if I imagined it worn by my early 19th century twin, both in body and temperament.  Even when I’m not very skinny I have a very wide, bony clavicle and chest, so that even the most daringly low cut neckline looks respectable until it begins to show my navel.  And I’m so innately prim and prudish and flat out innocent (usually) that I can make the tartiest dress look demure (in high school a classmate told me that if the whole class walked into a room and found me and a guy in our altogethers they would assume there was a perfectly innocent explanation for it – because it was me).  So on someone that it could not possibly look provocative on?  I love the dress!  On anyone else?  Oh dear… The question of who it was worn by was …