All posts tagged: Madam Rogers

Rate the dress: ruffles, flounces, puffs & bows in the late 1860s

Last week I presented the pseudo Roman ‘Julius Ceasar’ costume worn by Fritz Lieber in the 1917 version of Cleopatra.  Despite the respectable official rating of 6.8 out of 10, I think the real rating should be much, much lower, because most of you were so bored by the outfit that you couldn’t even be bothered to comment on it.  As Daniel said “Eh’. Ouch.  Sorry. I’ll try to be more interesting! This week I present a dress that I’ve been interested in for months and months, but haven’t found the right time to show you. This dress is the antithesis of anything even slightly manly that might have been going on last week.  When it comes to girly, this dress from the MFA Boston has it all: tiers of stiff, ribbon edged ruffles down the front of the skirt, a pleated flounce at the bottom, a wrapped lace and ribbon trimmed bertha with bows catching up the ruffled sleeves, a pleated sash, and three tiers of graduated poofs descending down the back of the …