All posts tagged: 17th century

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: Maria Anna does geometry

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week you were surprisingly positive about the black and gold Regency frock. Many of you noticed the bee/bug resemblence, and you actually approved of it! The dress rated an 8.1 out of 10. This week, I thought it was high time I posted a full portrait, where you could consider the dress and the way it fits the wearer’s looks and personality. This is Maria Anna of Spain, who was considered as a potential bride to Charles I of England, and was instead married to her cousin Ferdinand III. Maria Anna was everything you could want in a 17th century princess: pretty, without being so attractive as to cause jealousy or tempt a king into an unwise match; even tempered and happy, more than capable of balancing her gloomy husband’s moods; a competent ruler when called upon to serve as her husbands regent, but not tempted by more power, like her sister Anne of Austria. Also unlike Anne, she had no problem producing the raft of heirs that was the ultimate mark of success …

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 …