This week’s Rate the Dress is very on-theme for the seasons here in New Zealand. Spring is in full swing, daffodils abound, and the first butterflies are out. So I’ve picked a frock with daffodils and butterflies, perfect for frolicking through meadows of blossoming bulbs. Maybe next week I’ll pick something very autumnal, for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere! Last Week: a ca. 1880 afternoon ensemble The ratings for last week’s dress were pretty clearly divided into three camps. Quite a lot of you thought the muted colours and single tonal range balanced the excessive details nicely, resulting in a good, but not great dress. And some of you thought that more is more is more is fabulous, and gave it a perfect (or nearly so) score. And then, there were those who thought the dress was just awful, resulting in an extremely unusual proportion of 3s and 4s! The end result? The Total: 6.9 out of 10 An average which accurately represents the opinion of exactly one of the raters! This week: a …

I swear I wasn’t thinking about a continuous theme at all when I browsed for this week’s Rate the Dress! But what do you know…it’s once again a back vs front dress, this time with a very ornamented front, and quite plain back. Last Week:  an 1890s Liberty Tea Gown   Although tea gowns weren’t primarily meant for tea parties, the ratings for last week’s Liberty example were rather like black tea with milk: very popular with most (at least that’s how tea goes amongst most of the people I know), and vehemently opposed by a small group (you know who you are, oh thee of ‘tea should NEVER be taken with anything but lemon’!). Those who didn’t care for the tea gown were either not a fan of the droopy sleeves, or not a fan of orange. The Total: 8.5 out of 10 Not quite as good as last week, but eminently respectable. It was quite a fun score to add up, because I put the votes in columns of 10, and add up …