I did wonder what you would make of the 1950s Paquin dress last week.  I find it emotionally appealing, because it reminds me of those flowers so, and aesthetically not quite as appealing, because it looks exactly like a dress based on those flowers which I would have designed when I was, I don’t know, nine?  It’s just so literal.  In the end, I was the opposite of Fidelo: I wanted to hate it, but I just couldn’t.  I also couldn’t love it though, and so the 7.3 out of 10 that you rated it is just a teeny bit higher than what I would have given it. I know this fortnight is supposed to be Separates, and I had the perfect Separates ‘Rate the Dress’ all picked out, and now I can’t remember where on earth the link is, and all the other separates I can find seem to be beige and white, and I’m quite sure you’ve all had enough of pale tones for a while, and it’s time for something vivid and …

I’ll be perfectly honest with you.  I was NOT expecting you, on the whole, to like last week’s Rate the Dress.  I thought all of you would be calling curtains and poof and froof and Miss Havisham.  I mean, it had puffed sleeves divided by puffs with triple rows of ruffles at the edges, and layers and layers of puffed skirts, all surmounted by a puffed sash.  But you loved it!  Perhaps all that paleness made the puffiness work, because it came in at a respectable 7.7 out of 10 (not bad for a dress that did, in the end, get compared to curtains & Miss Havisham). This week I’m sticking with pale, but going outside the date perimeters of the Historical Sew Fortnightly with a 1950s gown (though Massignac was the designer for Paquin from 1945 to 49, so I question the dating slightly). This dress reminds me of the moonflowers that used to grow wild all along the roads growing up Hawaii.  They would bloom at dusk, and fade early in the morning. …