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 …

I’m very excited about this week’s Rate the Dress choice, because it’s a dress I’ve actually examined* in person.  It’s not often that I get to show one of those!  I may love it because I’ve seen it, but will you love it for what it looks like? Last week:  a late 1910s Lucile dress Well, Lady Luck doesn’t wear green as far as Lucile is concerned, because a lot of you DID NOT like the dress – though the vivid green colour was one of the few elements that was almost universally popular. There were a few people who did like the dress for the overall impression it created, but for most of you, it just wasn’t working. The Total: 5.8 out of 10 Ouch.  Anything below a 6 is pretty unusually bad! This week: Last week’s Lucile dress may have been a little too heavy on the quirkiest details of 1910s fashions (though you may be surprised to find how many examples of dangling-bust-trim were made in the 1910s), so this week’s pick …