All posts filed under: Rate the dress

Rate the Dress: the littlest bodice and the biggest garden of embroidery

This week’s Rate the Dress goes from big 1890s sleeves, to little tiny 1790s bodices Last week: an 1890s reception gown in pumpkin orange Many of you loved the Anne reference, but not everyone is a puffed sleeve fan. It lost some points just for the sleeves. And gained some just for the sleeves. And lost some points just for the colour. And gained some just for the colour. The one thing everyone seemed to agree on was a not-sure-ness about the scale of the beading and the chiffon overlay. The Total: 7.9 out of 10 Well, and improvement on the week before, and almost good enough to count as a proper success. This week: a 1790s dress and matching fichu This dress represents a very brief and specific moment of fashion, where the last remnants of 18th century styles, in the form of fichu and an open overskirt, meet the extremely brief bodice of the early Regency/Empire silhouette. When I say extremely brief, I mean it. The bodice appears to be no more …

Rate the Dress: Puffed sleeves & pumpkin orange

Published by The Dreamstress

A colleague and I were discussing Anne of Green Gables and her love of puffed sleeves today. It’s amazing how that episode has become such a defining feature of so many of our formative years – and often our introduction to historical fashion. In keeping with our talk, I’ve picked an 1890s dress with the puffiest of puffed sleeves for this week’s Rate the Dress, although the colour might not have been so much to Anne’s taste – at least not for long. Last week: a 1920s number in tomato red and fuchsia with gold Ratings for last week’s dress were all over the place – everything from 1 to 10, and every number in between (except 2, which rather disappoints me. 2 is a much more inventive rating than 1 – it says “I really don’t like this, but I have thought about exactly, exactly why). There were four times as many 10s and 1s, but also quite a lot of the in-betweens, which will explain the rating of… The Total: 7.5 out of …

Dress, ca. 1923-1925, silk metal, Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design via DigitalMuseum.no

Rate the Dress: Fuchsia & Red Make Friends

Published by The Dreamstress

After last week’s classic blue and white, this week’s Rate the Dress pick is decidedly more daring, with a tomato red and fuchsia pairing that few decades would presume to attempt.