Last week I featured an 1860s dress in ever-so-fashionable aniline yellow, with black lace.  The dress elicited a very divided response.  A third  of you thought it was gauche and garish, a third of you found it absolutely  glorious and golden, and the rest of you could admire the bravery and the fashion-forwardness, even if it was a bit too wasp-y not WASP-y for your tastes. The balance of adoration, abhore-ation, and mild in-period appreciation gave the dress a 6.4 out of 10, which is the lowest we’ve had in quite some time. This week I have gone as far from bold, garish, and outre as possible, to the almost obsessively  delicate, subdued and detailed fashions of the first decade of the 20th century. This dress from the Indianapolis Museum of Art is made of peach pink silk, embellished with a profusion of pintucks, shirring, ruching, three-dimensional ribbon flowers, velvet detailing, and almost photo-realistic appliques of peony flowers. The bodice features the classic 1900s drooping pigeon breast, with the sheer silk revealing layers of detailing. …

Last week I showed you a red velvet and gold lace and peacock feathers dress, ca 1900.  Ca 1900, red velvet, gold lace, and peacock feather embroidery are all generally considered to be good things when it comes to Rate the Dress, so, not surprisingly, many of you approved of the dress, even if it did come with a side order of wonky bow, awkward bust embellishment, embroidery wrinkles, potential itch factor, and overly puffy sleeves.  In fact, despite all these things, the power of red and gold propelled the dress to an 8 out of 10. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art calls this summery bustled evening dress a ‘Polonaise’ gown, reflecting the 1870s interest in the 18th century, and the revival of 18th century dress terms. The name may be 18th century inspired, and there may be the barest nod at the idea of a Georgian fichu in the guimpe/dickey which gives the dress the option of moving between different types of evening events, but the overall look is classic 1870s. There …

Whether you liked last week’s Rate the Dress depended entirely on whether you are OK with ultra-perky, ultra-feminine 18th c shepherdess looks, and whether you found that the non-matchy (in a 21st century sense – a lot of our ideas of coordination and matching are pretty modern) trim clashed with the dress, or gave it the right amount of interest (though, if you look closely, the trim was exactly the same colour as the flowers in the floral pattern of the dress), and whether it reminded you of wallpaper (yes, I’m in that camp, but the trim totally saved it for me). Though many of you adored the dress, there were enough of you who  saw only wallpaper and clash for it to come down to 8.4 out of 10. This week I’m sticking with a time honoured and accepted colour match combination, and a significantly more regal and restrained silhouette. This evening dress in red velvet features gold bobbin lace trim around the neck and sleeves, gold detailing on the bodice, a perky bow …