The Dreamstress

Apologies that the blog has been so slow: not much but Rate the Dress, and even that not on a weekly basis. I’m just out of pep at the moment. All my energy is going toward teaching, and everything else feels like slogging through molasses.

I’m hoping to wrap up some big project this week, and have more energy, and thus be able to finish some of the fun blog posts that are sitting 3/4 written. Fingers crossed…

For now, here is an extremely pep-y 1780s dress.

Last Week: a golden yellow moire 1860s gown

Not exactly to my surprise, not a lot of you were madly in love with last week’s dress. It was a lot. And even less to my surprise, the thing that received the most criticism was the rosettes. They were quite…distinctive. I really appreciated viewers who tried to imagine a person who this dress could really work on. While it’s not something I’ll every love for me, I could actually imagine a kind of person who it would suit and would look fabulous on, and who it would be so right for you’d just love it on them.

The Total: 6.6 out of 10

Eeep. Such a come down after weeks of 9+ ratings!

This week: a pink and green 1780s gown

The Musee des Arts Decoratifs describes this dress as a polonaise, and while it has decorative elements in common with some gowns that clearly are polonaise, the overall cut of this one is not typical of a polonaise. It definitely appears to have a waist seam, and its pointed back, while not clearly either an Anglaise or Italian gown, is definitely not the lobed skirt of a polonaise.

So, like many garments in the 1780s, an era of transition between styles, this dress has elements of many styles. In overall design it’s certainly a garment of its time.

The use of large quantities of a contrasting fabric for flat decorative elements is unusual in most 18th century fashion, but not the 1780s. In this dress the green trim is embellished with delicate metal embroidery featuring peacock feathers. Peacock feather embroidery was particularly fashionable at Versailles in the 1780s: the grand habit attributed to Rose Bertin at the Royal Ontario Museum features very similar peacock feather motifs.

While contrasting flat-trim appears in a variety of colour combinations in the 1780s, pink and green seems to have been particularly on-trend. I’m aware of at least four extant ensembles from this era with pink skirts and jackets trimmed with green facings. Given how many 1780s dress trends are named after actresses or characters in plays its possible that a particularly famous theatre costume came in this colourway and inspired the fashion.

I don’t know if the petticoat is original to the dress, or (more likely) one that was paired with it because it was a close-enough match.

This green, for the record, is not arsenic green: arsenic green is unsuitable as a colourant for silk because the copper turns dark in combination with silks sulphur content. Instead, this dress is an excellent example of how this shade of green could be achieved with natural dyes.

What do you think? Do you like this example of extremely-on-trend 1780s?  

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

A reminder about rating — feel free to be critical if you don’t like a thing, but make sure that your comments aren’t actually insulting to those who do like a garment.  Phrase criticism as your opinion, rather than a flat fact. Our different tastes are what make Rate the Dress so interesting.  It’s no fun when a comment implies that anyone who doesn’t agree with it, or who would wear a garment, is totally lacking in taste. 

As usual, nothing more complicated than a .5.  I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment.

Welcome to all the new readers! Last week’s Rate the Dress must have been shared somewhere, because there was a flood of new commenters.

I’m down in Christchurch this week, doing research and visiting Lynne (who you’ll recognise as a frequent commenter on Rate the Dress posts). It’s been a hectic few weeks of wrapping up school terms, and I’m tired, and was feeling quite uninspired about this week’s Rate the Dress. Nothing I could think of seemed perfect.

So I pulled out all the options, and read out their basic description to Lynne. Purple floral 1880s? Rust on rust 1876? Black & white striped 1869? Yellow with rosettes 1867-8?

Lynne picked the last one, on the premise that it’s spring here, and we’re enjoying a beautiful vase of daffodils, and I went for a walk in the daffodil woods in the Christchurch Botanical Gardens today. She was concerned about the rosettes though: rosettes are so often pinked, and her mothers aversion to unfinished edges has remained.

She need not worry about unfinished edges, these rosettes are nicely finished. They may still be…concerning though. And they yellow isn’t really spring-y and daffodil-y. But if you don’t like the frock you must blame me and not her!

Last Week: an 1890s petal pink reception dress

The ratings for last week’s dress came in two distinct groups: total 10/10 fans, and people who were distinctly meh about it, and rated it 5/10. The first group was decidedly dominant, and combined with the smattering of other respectably high scores, the total has come in at a rather impressive…

The Total: 9 out of 10

Yet again it’s a few decimal points down on the week before.

This week: gold yellow moire with black lace

After giving you a dress last week that required a bit of imagination to repair defects in the dressing and presentation, I’m afraid I’ve done the same thing again this week.

Although the Metropolitan Museum of Art is usually quite good in its photographs, this one is a bit lacklustre. The mannequin is too short in the torso. It’s also too slim everywhere but the waist: the original wearer must have been possessed a beautifully junoesque figure, and this dress would benefit from a great deal of padding in the bust and upper torso.

The sleeves also need a bit of oomph. The dress would have been worn with engageantes, which would have added a little fullness and structure to the lower sleeves, and possible with sleeve supports in the upper sleeves as well.

On top of all that the dress isn’t in perfect condition. It’s trimmed with some rather delicate lace, which has perished in places. When you rate this dress, please try to imagine it on a mannequin that fits it properly, with the right supports, and with the lace and other bits intact.

As to the rest of the dress, well, that’s what Rate the Dress is about! I can see this one evoking some rather interesting reactions. The rosettes are, indeed, rather nicely finished, but they are…distinctive.

I’m guessing that the ratings are going to go one of two ways. Either you are either going to find the rosettes fun and whimsical: the design decision of an assured woman with a sense of humour and a good dash of chutzpah, or you’re going to think the whole thing is hideously clownish.

Am I right?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

A reminder about rating — feel free to be critical if you don’t like a thing, but make sure that your comments aren’t actually insulting to those who do like a garment.  Phrase criticism as your opinion, rather than a flat fact. Our different tastes are what make Rate the Dress so interesting.  It’s no fun when a comment implies that anyone who doesn’t agree with it, or who would wear a garment, is totally lacking in taste. 

As usual, nothing more complicated than a .5.  I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment.