All posts tagged: 1610s

Rate the Dress: The Countess as Flora in 1613 (ok, sort of)

Last week a lot of you loooooooved the Poiret negligee gown. And then, predictably, some of you were less than enthused about the daring colours. Less predictably, some of you got hung up on the tassle, insisting the wearer would trip over it (you could clearly see the hemline behind it, no tripping happening there). Despite this perplexing criticism, the dress managed a 8.2 out of 10 – quite good for something so avant garde. I had the hardest time finding a Rate the Dress for this week. I wanted to keep with the theme of _13 for the Bi/Tri/Quadri/Quin/Sex/Septi/Octo/Nona/Centennial Challenge, but simply couldn’t find a _13 garment that I hadn’t already featured and which appealed to me. I finally settled on this 1611 portrait of the noted beauty Frances Howard (this one, not the notorious Frances Howard) by Gheeraerts, with the assumption that there is every chance that the Countess would have been wearing the same items in 1613 (backed up by evidence that that definitely happened in this post). Gheeraerts paints Frances in …

Rate the Dress: Anne of Denmark with horse and hound

Published by The Dreamstress

Well, I’m off in Hawaii wearing much less elegant clothes than any of the Rate the Dresses. I only have a general idea of how last week’s very purple frock rated based on the comments that came in before I went off. So I’ll update this post later with a final count. Update: the extremely purple 1860s dress came in at 7.2 out of 10, which was very consistent with the majority of the ratings. We’ve seen Anne of Denmark before, showing off her exquisite bosom and throat. This time she’s a little more covered up, befitting an outfit worn to walk the dogs (OK, not really) and possibly ride a horse, or at least stand regally in front of it. The outfit retains the late-Elizabethan ruff, but the transition to 17th century style is apparent. Anne also seems to be transitioning to a more mature style of her own: gone are the pastels, the demure pose, replaced by rich colours and an assertive cocked arm. Is the change in Anne’s style an improvement? Or …

Rate the Dress: Charles I before he looked like Charles I

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week, despite my (unvoiced) personal misgivings about wearing such a vast quantity of red, you were generally very approving of the 1865 red dress. Oh, you had a few niggling complaints: the skirt trimming was a bit off, the colour too tomato-y, the bodice too square, but it still came in at 7.7 out of 10. Since you like red, let’s look at another red outfit. And since tomato red wasn’t your favourite, maybe rose-red will be even better. Charles I is one of those historical figures that you have such a clear mental image of: the mustache, the hair, the boots, the capes! But he didn’t always dress like that. This is Charles in his formative years: Yep. Very late Elizabethian. Also very red. Red doublet, red cape, super-poofy red pantaloons, red tights, red shoe-rosettes. And a kinda hilariously phallic hat with red trimmings. What do you think of a guy in head to toe red? Is Charles working it and showing the sartorial awesomeness he would be known for later in life? …