All posts tagged: 19th Century

Dress, ca. 1863, French, silk, Purchase, Judith and Ira Sommer Gift, 1999, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999.123a—c

Rate the Dress: Blue Flowers & Big Skirts

Your opinion on last week’s dress very much depended on whether it was seen from the front of the back. This week I present another dress that is quite different depending on the angle you see it from. How will it fare in comparison to last week’s pick? Last Week: a summer 1940 evening dress by Schiaparelli The verdict on last week’s dress was pretty clear for most of you: fabulous back, boring front. A few people disagreed, and thought the dress would have been overdone with a more elaborate front, and was perfection as it was. And a couple of you went looking and found the matching jacket that could be worn over the dress. I’d deliberately left it off, because the dress was clearly designed to be worn with or without the jacket, and I thought it would be interesting to see your reaction to Schiaparelli’s cutting, without the more obvious flourishes of the jacket. The Total: 7.5 out of 10 A slight improvement on last week, but still rather disappointing. This week: an …

Rate the Dress: 1880s evening pastels

Published by The Dreamstress

I’m feeling a little sad that I missed so many of the amazing creations at Gala Night at Costume College, and a little sad that I couldn’t ever have taken a heavier, more elaborate dress as a Gala outfit anyway (luggage allowance woes), combined with a bit of peace that I won’t be going again anyway. So I’ve been dream Gala dress browsing: enjoying all the heavy Victorian creations that I could never fit into a 23 kilo suitcase. This week’s dress reminds me a little of my Juno gown. Once you assembled all the accessories and undergarments they would need either would be too much of a space and weight hog to take. So we’ll just have to enjoy them online! Last Week: a 1900s suit in ruby red wool Last week’s red suit was clearly a bit costume-y, but in the right way, because so many of you wanted to dress your favourite heroine (or anti-heroine) in it, from Carmen Sandiego to Irene Adler. The one bit that some of you weren’t convinced …

Day dress and cape of shot silk, early 1850s, The John Bright Historic Costume Collection

Rate the Dress: Purple, purple, and more purple, 1850s

Published by The Dreamstress

When we bought our lovely little cottage four years ago, the master bedroom was painted purple floor to ceiling. It was awful*. When I saw today’s Rate the Dress it instantly reminded me of our previously-purple bedroom: not because it is necessarily awful, even really the same colour, but because it is a lot of purple, and because friends said of our bedroom “that colour might be really nice in something else, but not as a bedroom.”** Last week: a 1920s day dress in printed silk It was very easy to tell what people would give as a rating for last week’s dress, depending on what words you used for it. Those who found it ‘subtle’ or ‘delicate’ or ‘refined’ rated it above an 8, those who felt it was ‘blah’ or ‘washed out’ or a ‘sack’ gave it significantly less. side note: Catherine says it was a rice cake: healthful but not appealing. I happen to adore rice cakes. And a whole host of other very delicately flavoured foods with dry crunchy textures. My …