This week’s Rate the Dress stays in the same general time-period as last week’s tea gown, but goes from silliness and swoosh to severity, straight lines and tailoring. Last Week: an almost-certainly-a-tea-gown in warm yellow Sometimes the ratings for a Rate the Dress are all over the place. Sometimes there are a few clear blocks of opinions and ratings. And every once in a while there is an almost unanimous agreement – or at least a substantially cohesive verdict. A few of you did really like last week’s dress. And an even smaller few (well, single, not even few) of you didn’t. But more than 2/3rds of you fell into the 6-7.5 range and thought that the dress just had too much trim, but not enough of it in some places, and would have looked much better shorn of its fringe and beading and lace. The Total: 7 out of 10 The total for last week was so obvious I didn’t need a calculator! This week:  a tailored walking dress This week’s Rate the Dress …

I had one goal choosing this week’s Rate the Dress: it had to be orange. Which is why it’s yellow. Close enough? Life right now is about accepting compromise and imperfection, and being OK with what you have. So we have yellow. Last Week: a late Victorian dress in muted pink Last week’s Rate the Dress definitely had its fan club, but it also had its naysayers. Those fell into the category of people who liked everything about the dress except the lace, or maybe the sleeve ruffles, or the category of people who liked pretty much nothing about the dress. The resulting total? The Total: 7.4 out of 10 A whole point down from last week! And very representative of all the people who liked the dress except for one or two elements. This week:  an almost-certainly-a-tea-gown in warm yellow This week’s Rate the Dress is from the Helen Larson Private Collection that was sold by Whitakers a couple of years ago. The unusual train of this dress, which spills from between the shoulder …

I’d intended this week’s pick for Christmas week, but it felt so right for this week you’re getting it early. I guess I’ll have to find something different and fun for next week! Last Week:  a blue velvet robe de style by Poiret There was much discussion about last week’s dress and whether it was back to front on the mannequin, with most people leaning towards a high likelyhood that it was indeed on backwards. So, the dress was backwards, and the ratings were divided: if I broke the high scores and low scores in half at 6, We’d have two ratings: one of 9, and one of 4. But since I do a mean rating…. The Total: 7.7 out of 10 Sometimes the mean does not reflect the mode! This week:  a natural form era in red silk with rosettes and roses Last week’s dress was all about simplicity and innovation. This week’s dress is anything but simple: It is, however, from another era that was all about experimentation and invention. The late 1870s …