Rate the dress: married in purple poppies in the 1880s
Last week I showed a 1910s dress featuring draping in robin’s egg blue brocade and white lace. Some of you loved it, only one of you hated it, and most of you found the fabric divine, but felt that the fabric handling was just a bit beyond the skill of the dressmaker, and the whole effect left the dress feeling unresolved and quite provincial. It came in at a 6.9 out of 10, which is basically the Rate the Dress equivalent of saying “Well, good on you for trying”. (and also, someone noticed that the skirt slit means it should be added to the infamous Rate the Dress gallery of ‘dresses-that-look-disturbingly-anatomical-from-certain-angles (and ones by Charles James that look purposefully and unabashedly anatomical from all angles)’ ) This week I present another dress that features asymmetrical skirt draping, though this wedding dress, from an era when white was slightly less ubiquitous as a bridal colour, executes them in perfectly matched aubergine satin and damask, with taffeta ribbons and dark lace in complementary hues, rather than contrasting …