Dress

A dress (also known as a frock or a gown) is a garment consisting of a skirt with an attached bodice (or a matching bodice giving the effect of a one-piece garment). In Western culture, dresses are more often worn by women and girls.

The hemlines of dresses vary depending on the whims of fashion and the modesty or personal taste of the wearer.

History

18th century

The general custom in 1867 was to still wear dresses with skirts touching the ground. It had been tried several times to popularize the short length of the skirts but all tentative attempts were of no use. Uncovering the feet of the wearers at that time was not thought to be graceful.

19th century

Dresses increased dramatically to the hoopskirt and crinoline-supported styles of the 1860s; then fullness was draped and drawn to the back. Dresses had a "day" bodice with a high neckline and long sleeves, and an "evening" bodice with a low neckline (decollete) and very short sleeves.

Throughout this period, the length of fashionable dresses varied only slightly, between ankle-length and floor-sweeping.

The dress (viral phenomenon)

The dress, also known as Dressgate and associated with the hashtags #thedress, #whiteandgold, and #blackandblue, is a viral photo and meme which became popular on 26 February 2015. The viral phenomenon revealed differences in human colour perception which have been the subject of serious ongoing scientific investigation in neuroscience and vision science, with a number of papers published in peer-reviewed science journals.

The meme originated from a washed-out photograph of a dress posted on the social networking service Tumblr, and a dispute over whether the dress pictured was blue and black, or white and gold. In the first week after the surfacing of the image alone, more than 10 million tweets mentioned the dress. Although the actual colour of the dress was confirmed to be blue and black, the image prompted discussions surrounding the matter across various platforms, with users discussing their opinions on the colour and why they perceived the dress as being a certain colour, while some dismissed the issue as trivial.

Dress (PJ Harvey song)

"Dress" is the debut single by English singer-songwriter PJ Harvey from her debut album Dry. Released in 1991, two promotional music videos were also recorded.

Background and history

"Dress" was recorded at Yeovil's Icehouse as part of the Dry sessions. The song, like the album, generated an overwhelmingly strong critical response, though the song failed to chart. John Peel described the song as 'admirable, if not always enjoyable' after playing it for the first time on his radio show.

Lyrics tell the story of a woman who's trying to impress a certain man with a dress ("Must be a way that I can dress to please him"). She finds the dress pretty uncomfortable ("It's hard to walk in the dress, it's not easy/I'm spilling over like a heavy loaded fruit tree"), but she's hoping it will help her to ("Close up my eyes/Dreamy dreamy music make it be alright").

At the end of the song the man doesn't appreciate the dress ("You purdy thang, my man says,/But I bought you beautiful dresses.") and she falls on the floor, causes big embarrassment on her. ("I'm falling flat and my arms are empty/Clear the way better get it out of this room")