All posts filed under: 19th Century

Rate the Dress: Green tartan in 1801

UPDATE: Last week’s Worth of 1875 rated a (drumroll here because it is 5 months late and better be worth it!) 8.5 out of 10. Many of you were madly in love with it, but a few of you thought the colours and trim a bit disjointed, and it lost points for that. This is my last week of ‘away’ Rate the Dresses where I haven’t had time to look at all your comments from last week. Hopefully I’ve picked a good one! I’ve been very good and have resisted the urge to show you this as a St Patricks themed post in March, with some dreadful comment about mixing Scotland and Ireland. Instead I’m showing you this now because…ummm…green is good….plaid is good…Hawai’i is very green…also, it’s interesting (the Rate the Dress, not Hawai’i, though Hawai’i is interesting too). While tartan is one of the ‘universal’ patterns (like the Meander, or Greek Key) that turns up in almost every culture, rather than the exclusively Scottish design it is sometimes thought of as, this dress, …

The ‘Century of the Fruitbat’ 1880s bustle

Published by The Dreamstress

And in order to keep a happy marriage happy he allowed Sybil to bustle in, wearing, in fact, a bustle,* to adjust his shirt, tweak his collar, and make him fit for company. It’s no secret that one of my favourite living authors is Terry Pratchett. I’ve read every single one of his books, slip references to him into my writing, hum songs about hedgehogs to myself as I wash dishes (true story, I was 25 before I figured out what that word meant, and thus, why the song was naughty), and treat myself his newest work every time I have a plane flight longer than an hour. I love Terry Pratchett; he’s brought so much joy to my life, and is the only author I would line up to get a book signed by. I’ll never get the opportunity now. Terry Pratchett is dying. He has a very rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s, and so a man who has made his living by his wits is slowly loosing them. I cried when I heard …

Rate the Dress: Worth of 1875

Published by The Dreamstress

UPDATE: Five months late I am happy to tell you that Anne of Denmark rated a 7.5 out of 10, and that while not all of you loved the dress as a dress, you all agreed that Anne was rocking it, and had the attitude to pull off pretty much anything. Sounds like Anne grew into her style! I think this Worth afternoon dress transitions nicely from Anne of Denmark’s dress last week. There is something every so slightly reminiscent of the early 17th century in the deep neckline and the front bow, and the whole extremely sculpted silhouette is something it shares with the late Elizabethan. The overall look, however, is quite late Victorian, with its abundance of construction details and overall impression of upholstery. You rather liked our last ‘upholstery’ Rate the Dress. What do you think of this one? How do you feel about the two shades of dark teal green with touches of gold? The bows front and back? The asymmetrical fringed apron drape? Rate the Dress on a Scale of …