All posts tagged: 1910

Rate the Dress: Extremely green in 1919

Despite the difficult rust colour of last weeks 1840s dress you quite liked it, and thought it one of the best examples of its era. It rated a quite fabulous 9.2 out of 10. This week I thought I should pick something a bit brighter: This end of the ‘teens dress from the Metropolitan Museum of Art is all chartreuse velvet and gold lace. Do you like the bold colours and the transition from Directorie revival to the 20’s silhouette? Or is it too garish, and neither one period nor the other? Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

Rate the dress: Lace and fur in 1910

Published by The Dreamstress

Well, you have had two weeks now of vivid red Rate the Dresses. You liked the rose-red of Charles I’s outfit better than the tomato red of the 1860s dress, but other than the colour Charles’ 1610s outfit didn’t fare too well. You rated it a paltry 4.7 out of 10, and dubbed it a representation of the ugliest period in fashion ever, but I daresay it would have come off worse had it not been red. Popular as it may be, I can’t show you red outfits for every Rate the Dress. It would get monotonous, and I think it gives them an unfair advantage. Personally, I’m a huge fan of neutrals, partly because I feel a neutral frock really has to work for approval: if it isn’t right, you notice, where a bright colour can hide shoddy design. Shoddy design is, of course, a matter of taste and time. It had never occurred to me that this was a fashion no-no, but in Flora Klickmann’s Flower Patch books, she complains about the “innappropriate, …

The Corset Model Class of 2011

Published by The Dreamstress

I got photographs of all the models wearing their corsets on Saturday against a plain cement wall. Every time I have looked at the photos since then, I have cracked up. They remind me of the kind of pictures you take in Elementary School for a ‘me, myself, and I’ project. You have the kid who can’t stop grinning, the kid who closes their eyes in every picture, the kid who won’t smile because they think they look better without one (that would have been me), the kid who won’t stand still for even a moment, and the kid who probably should have been a model. We all look ridiculous, and absolutely gorgeous, all at the same time. It’s a total celebration of personality, and all the different facets of beauty that exist. Without further ado, I present Ms Oakes’ Corset Model Class of 2011. And finally, the erstwhile instructress: Ladies, you can teach me anytime!