Wooooooh dearie! You guys may like Judy Garland, but you DID NOT like her dress last week. You gave it a hearty “Clang, clang” and dubbed it “pooposterous”. Judy only ranked 3 out of 10. Poo.
This week’s Rate the Dress is in honour of my Mum. She saw this dress and immediately said I should do it as a “Rate the Dress”.
A smart woman always listens to her mother.
The stereotypical Victorian society mother would certainly approve of this frock. It covers everything from the chin to the toes, wrapping wrists in froths of lace, and disguising bosoms beneath swaths of marabou feathers.
Evening dress R. H. White & Co. (American, Boston, Massachusetts) Date- 1885 Medium- silk, feathers, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.1803a, b
The colours of the gown add to the effect of imperious purity; the wearer would have been an ice goddess in aqua and palest gold.
Evening dress R. H. White & Co. (American, Boston, Massachusetts) Date- 1885 Medium- silk, feathers, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.1803a, b
The only suggestion of a more passionate nature beneath the frosty exterior of the gown is the detailing of lacing holding the fronts of the faux jacket taut, hinting at the corsets beneath the gown.*
Ooh la la. Mother would not approve.
But do you? Do you appreciate the contrasts of heavily patterned damask and smooth silk, the natural sensuality of feathers and the carefully constructed artificiality of lace, the warm, voluptuous curves of the Victorian beauty and the mask of an ice goddess?
Rate the Dress on a scale of 1 to 10.
*Sheesh. Maybe I missed my calling. Perhaps I should write saucy novels next!
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