Last week’s Rate the Dress was very subdued and subtle and restful.  This week I’m going in exactly the opposite direction, and featuring a vivid pink 19teens dress with lots of zing. Last week:  A 1920s artistic ensemble A few of you loved it for looking supremely comfortable and wearable, and most of you could appreciate the elegance of the embellishment, but many of you were not quite convinced by the colour, or all the details – especially the cuffs. The Total: 7.7 out of 10 And a huge thank you to Daniel for adding a bunch of extra historical information and context about the outfit! This week: I wanted something bright and fun as a contrast to last week, and you can’t get much brighter and more fun than hot pink velvet: Augusta Auctions gave a date range of 1910-14 when they sold this pink velvet confection, but the draped hobble skirt is so absolutely typical of 1913-14 that I feel confident dating it to those years. The horizontal seam across the hips, while …

It’s the last week of March, which means the last week of #GreatWarMarch themed Rate the Dress picks.   Next week will be something totally different.  Maybe 18th century.  Maybe 1860s.  Who knows!  Definitely not from 1900-1924 though!  To finish up our month-long celebration of Edwardian fashion & history, this week’s Rate the dress is a really, really, fascinating iridescent silk taffeta number from the mid-1910s. Last week:  An Edwardian Evening Dress Poor dress last week.  Not only did it have a less-than-ideal mannequin, but no one loved it enough to give it a 10!  It did get some rather nice ratings – but also a lot of not nearly so nice numbers.  The layers of detailing, particularly the organza ruffles, velvet cords, and floral corsage (so, pretty much all of them) came in for a lot of criticism.  Just about everyone agreed that the cut-out layer was glorious, but the more that got added on top of it, the less you liked the dress! The Total: 6.4 out of 10 Wah wah. This week: …