I started the Rate the Dress party-frock-a-thon with an orange dress, and it felt right to finish it up with the same colour.  It’s not usually a favourite colour, but the first one was a smashing success.  Can this week’s pick rival it? Last week:  a House of Worth  Robe à transformation  in red velvet Red velvet was always going to be pretty popular, and the ratings and comments did not disappoint.  There was a veritable sea of “ooooh” and swooning (and two outlying ‘nopes’). There was a bit of a divide in those who preferred the draped bodice, and thought the evening bodice looked like a forced exercise in using the lace, and those who thought the day bodice was unrelieved or contrived, and the evening bodice incredibly clever and spectacular. I’m one who didn’t love the evening bodice at first glance, but the more I looked at it up close, the more it grew on me.  There were some incredibly clever features that were really struggling to show in the photos.  I think …

Last week:  a brown & blue bustle-era dress So last week’s dress got a bit of attention and comments for something I hadn’t noticed or anticipated.  I think I’ve looked at so many 1880s dresses with centre front gathers, swags, and ruching that I hadn’t realised that at times, as with the blue & brown dress, it could be a bit…anatomical… But not everyone saw that unfortunate potential: lots of you actually saw a crisply tailored dress in a playful take on two elegantly subdued colours. And then some of you thought it was just boring The Total: 7.8 out of 10 Not bad, not great. This week: This week’s pick is a 1920s frock by Poiret, which balances the new move towards streamlined and simple with his trademark eye for details and sense of humour and whimsy. The silhouette is a simple mid-1920s sheath, but it is enlivened with elaborately scalloped hems and upper sleeves: The heavier black of the dress is lightened with frothy lower sleeves and a matching faux chemise neckline: A …

This week’s Rate the Dress is brought to you by great gibbering gibbons beneath the gibbous green moon. Say that three times fast! Last week:  A House of Worth Reception gown of ca. 1890 1/2 of you Raters loved last weeks dress (maybe with a few tiny niggles).  1/4 of you thought it had a lot of good elements – but also some that just weren’t working.  And the last 1/4 of you thought it had so many terrible elements that it was a totally washout – just like the colours. The Total: 8 out of 10 Still eminently respectable.  (personally, I loved the idea of it, and I hated almost everything about the execution except the purple and the bustling – which is so good I can almost forgive everything else when I’m looking at the bustle.  I keep trying to ‘fix’ all the rest in my mind, and can’t, and that’s driving me crazy). This week: A 1920s artistic ensemble I’ve had a rather full week. When I went to choose a Rate …