Set aside your sweatshirting, it’s silk time!  For this week’s Rate the Dress I’ve chosen a lavish, high-end dinner dress, complete with matching shoes. Last week: an 1840s dress in striped silk Quite a few of you liked the striped/plaid silk dress from last week, but more of you had reservations about it.  You felt that the silk was neither one thing nor another (not striped or plaid), and that the dress itself was not one thing or another – and was definitely in need of accessories to bring it to life. The Total: 7.2 out of 10 A neither here nor there, needs some trimming, kind of score. This week: an 1870s evening dress ensemble – complete with shoes This 1870s dinner ensemble comes complete with perfectly matching shoes, which come with their own quirky design feature: binding and lining in blue on one shoe, and gold on the other.  The detail would have been hidden under the wearers skirt most of the time: a secret for herself, and anyone lucky and observant enough …

It’s the weekly interruption of the Otari Hoodie Sew Along for Rate the Dress.  For this week’s frock I’ve picked something in colours that are diametrically opposite to all the teals and blues I’m working on with my Hoodies: an 1840s day dress in warm ochre gold and plum purple satin. Last week: an early 1910s day dress in grape purple with vermillion   Nobody likes butt bows.  And, as it turns out, just-below-the-front-knee bows really aren’t that much more popular.  Nor are weird flaps in the back of the dress that look like it didn’t get fastened properly.  But deep grape purple satin (this was at least the 4th RTD we’ve had in very similar fabrics), and 1910s, are almost always winners on Rate the Dress, and even with some discordant elements this was bound to be reasonably popular. The Total: 8.4 out of 10 Welp, better than the butt-heart wreath and fringe of the week before! This week: an 1840s day dress in gold stripes Like the 1910s ‘Ring o Roses’ dress from …