Last week I showed you a plaid 1840s dress, and the loud pattern, amber and brown colour scheme, and uneven pattern matching failed to spark your interest and meet with approval, though the overall shape was deemed nice.  The dress came in at a 6.9 out of 10. This fortnight’s theme on The Historical Sew Fortnightly is ‘All that Glitters’ and glitzy, shiny items make for fun Rate the Dress posts. I’m really not going all-out with this one though, and have instead picked a dress with lots of shimmer – but all of it quite subtle and restrained. The Metropolitan Museum of Art calls this Regency-Revival gown a ball gown, but with its relatively high neckline, and longer sleeves, I’m not entirely convinced, and the train makes me really doubt the ball-gown claim.  I suspect  it was more of a dinner or reception dress.  I also wonder if there is a chance that this  was a half-mourning gown, though by 1908 the  trend towards  chic-black for its own sake was beginning to emerge (long …