All posts filed under: Rate the dress

Evening dress, 1810-1815, silk, Rueil-Malmaison, châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Preau, M.M.2014.7.1

Rate the Dress: Regency ruffles and really green

Published by The Dreamstress

After two weeks of dresses that were very much one colour, I was determined to choose something a little more polychromatic this week. But as they say, the best laid plans… Last week:  a sunshine yellow and flowers robe a la anglaise General reaction to the dress: “Yes, yes, that fabric! And oooh, that back pattern matching! But…umm…not so happy about front non-matchingness. And the stomacher just isn’t doing it. But oh, that colour is so cheerful, and that fabric is so gorgeous, so…” The Total: 9.4 out of 10 Yay for yellow! This week:  a very green 1810s dress, I was determined to choose a Rate the Dress that didn’t feature such a single, strong, colour note. And then, when I went searching for the right thing, this dress chose itself. What could I do? Other than the colour, the aspect of this dress that instantly struck me is the hem treatment, with a ruched edging, as well as a gathered ruffle with piped centre. The hem treatment, with its slight variation in shades …

Robe à l'anglaise, England (Spitalfields), c. 1750. Yellow brocaded silk, woven with brightly coloured large-scale oriental poppies, posies and swags, the ground figured with arabesques and wine silk spotted cartouches, linen lining, trimmed with pinked furbelows; stomacher trimmed with rosettes and braid, sold by Kerry Taylor Auctions

Rate the Dress: Sunny, sunny yellow, ca 1750

Published by The Dreamstress

Today’s rate the dress is brought to you courtesy of the unprecedented heatwave that is hitting New Zealand. It’s so bright and sunny that I picked an equally bright and sunny dress to go with it – though I wouldn’t want to be wearing the heavy silk of this weeks Rate the Dress in the heat! Last week: a shot purple dress and matching cape A couple of you loved last weeks dress, but most people thought it was nice but not fantastic. Noted let-downs were the ‘seaweed-y’ trim, and that pesky centre front seam. Still, all the ratings were in the top half of the range, so I guess my comparisons to horrible purple rooms didn’t put you off too much – or you were feeling contrary so had to rate it well, simply because I made the comparison 😉 The Total: 8.3 out of 10 Middling. This week: I’m rather famous/notorious for being a fan of yellow, and I try not to lean into that too much with Rate the Dress. I wouldn’t …

Day dress and cape of shot silk, early 1850s, The John Bright Historic Costume Collection

Rate the Dress: Purple, purple, and more purple, 1850s

Published by The Dreamstress

When we bought our lovely little cottage four years ago, the master bedroom was painted purple floor to ceiling. It was awful*. When I saw today’s Rate the Dress it instantly reminded me of our previously-purple bedroom: not because it is necessarily awful, even really the same colour, but because it is a lot of purple, and because friends said of our bedroom “that colour might be really nice in something else, but not as a bedroom.”** Last week: a 1920s day dress in printed silk It was very easy to tell what people would give as a rating for last week’s dress, depending on what words you used for it. Those who found it ‘subtle’ or ‘delicate’ or ‘refined’ rated it above an 8, those who felt it was ‘blah’ or ‘washed out’ or a ‘sack’ gave it significantly less. side note: Catherine says it was a rice cake: healthful but not appealing. I happen to adore rice cakes. And a whole host of other very delicately flavoured foods with dry crunchy textures. My …