This week’s Rate the Dress is a late Victorian vision by Hallée in lace and tucks: the light and frothy mirror to last week’s dress

Hurrah! Comments are back! Thanks to some awesome work by my brilliant webmaster, who figured out what the error was and did the way-beyond-my-capabilities fix that was needed, you can now see comments, and have conversations, and do all that stuff that makes blogging good. To celebrate, a blog post about someone who I met because they are an awesome commenter & community member. Lynne’s been following my blog and commenting and supporting since the very early days of my blogging. She joined back when the blogging world was tiny, and you felt like you knew everyone. It was so long ago going to meet an internet person in person was totally normal and not scary and potentially dangerous! So when Lynne asked me to come visit her, I went – and she’s been my costuming fairy godmother ever since. I had two lovely long visits amidst her beautiful gardens in Ashburton. I’ve since made lots of things from the gorgeous fabrics she’s gifted me (like this fur muff, and the wool for the fantail …

I’m sorry for the radio silence. On a personal level, it’s because I’ve been dealing with a really difficult and stressful situation. On a bigger level, it’s because blogging about fashion history while black, indigenous & other people of colour continue to be marginalised, oppressed, and killed seems frivolous and pointless. #blacklives matter. You don’t need my voice: another privileged white woman, telling you about it. All I can do is to educate myself, and to try to use this blog and instagram to share the work and knowledge of those who have been working for racial equality, and to decolonise the US, New Zealand and the rest of the world. I’m working on a plan to lend actual, practical support. I can also work to help make the historical costuming community a safe, supportive place for people of colour: one that doesn’t romanticise or idealise the past, and that does not provide a platform for racism. This blog and my instagram will continue to be a combination of fashion history and social history, because …