Fashion

[GCR18]

Both grandma's only wore dresses, but a little fancier than a house dress. Mother wore house dresses until we were grown, then switched into pants.  These days she often wears jeans.

[GenXmuse]

My grandmothers did. They were a little more elevated than a house dress but very simple. I wish I had them now. 

[nyc1]

Never

[Mz iMac]

My mother worked (retired teacher).  As soon as she came home, clothes came off & the snapped down house dress came on.

On weekends - I swear she never took the house dress off.  Either she only had one or had many w/the same sky blue print.

I think she stopped wearing them around the time she was in her 70's. 

[Andreatoo]

No never. As far as I was concerned she woke up in full make up with her hair perfectly coiffed and she never wore a house dress! Always looked like she was ready for visitors 

[HallowsEve]

It seemed that Grandma had tons of the house dresses and then fancier dresses for going out, never saw her in any type of pants ever. My mom wore dresses when I was younger and then dress slacks later on. My mom NEVER owned a pair of jeans ever - only dress slacks. At home she wore what most of us are wearing now, sweats or leisure type clothes.

[IdahoGram]

I was born in '39 and my mother wore slacks most of the time, jodphers with riding boots some and dresses only for dressy occasions my whole life.  I never saw her in a house dress.  

[twinsister]

Yes - my mother and aunts always wore housedresses.

[NYCLatinaMe]

I am not sure what a house dress is, but I think this is Isaac's dress that I believe you are referring to:

While I don't care for the print, I had dresses in similar styles (button front, short sleeve, drapey material - I think lined chiffon in dark rich saturated color prints) that I bought in Bloomingdale's and wore to work as an attorney in a large law firm in NYC and out in the evening in the 1990s.  I remember one by Laundry By Shelli Segal, and I had other names I don't remember.  I reallly liked them!

This is the same time when Isaac was an acclaimed designer.  I don't recall his fashions, which was his problem.  No distinctive style.

[crackster]

In the thirties, forties and into the early fifties, my mother wore "Princess Peggy Housedresses", that were purchased in the basement of Brown Dunkin Department Store in Tulsa,OK. She never worked outside the home as she raised four children pretty much  by herself, as daddy traveled three weeks out of every month.  She always looked so crisp and neat. All our clothes were put in a vat of bluing, and then a vat of starch if it was needed, then put in the washer, then everything was  put  through the wringer before ready for the clothesline. Mother would  climb up  eight stairs with her baskets, out a side door, all around to  the other side of the house. The  clothesline consisted of  a long pieces of heavy  wire that was wrapped around three large elm trees, which gave her two very very  long clothes lines. If it  rained, she used the two lines in the basement. She didn't have an automatic washer or dryer, until 35 years later when she sold the house and moved. She lived to be 97 and 8 months. The "unrepeatable, unprecedented and irreplaceable Katie Powell, my mother.