Housecoat vs Dressing Gown

[7SunshineSeven7]

There's a post doing the rounds on facebook about how dressing gown is the right way to say it.

I know that house coat used to be a thing and stuff but I call it both a house coat and a dressing gown interchangeably.

What do you call it? (And where are you from incase that changes it?)

Dressing gown, various places in the South East.

To me a house coat would be a protective layer over your normal clothes when you're cleaning, quilted or like a lab coat.

I like "morning robe." I'm going to start calling mine that.

Dressing Gown - Aberdeen

This thread has made me want to watch Shirley valentine. She had a house coat I'm sure, although thinking about it she probably owned a dressing gown too.

This is a picture of Hilda Ogden. Wearing a sleeveless housecoat.

Dressing gown, but my Nan (born 1910, Liverpool) called them Housecoats.

She made her own and they were often quilted.

If they were fancy type, then she'd call them a dressing gown, that you'd wear before putting on a posh frock.

To me it depends on the purpose. If it's absorbent and intended for wear after a shower or bath to help dry off, it's a bath robe. If it's worn over pyjamas or nightdress for warmth, it's a dressing gown. Of the pictures posted, I would call the knee length button through numbers housecoats, for doing housework in. My Nan had them, as well as her pinnies. But the full length quilted ones I would deem dressing gowns, for wearing over jimjams. Equally a belted robe could be a dressing gown if it were in a non absorbent material not suited for drying off. E.g. I have a cotton terry bathrobe, for after showering, but a chenille, hooded, wrap around, belted garment worn over pyjamas that I call a dressing gown. No housecoat as I'd sweat like a pig doing housework in one - just aprons.

I'm in Scotland via NW England.

walkers

That overall is what my gran (born 1914 in rural Aberdeenshire) would have called a "peeny" (pinny)

How about Goonie for Nightdress or Nightgown!

Depends on the season, I have a big fluffy housecoat I wear when it's cold, I have a thin light dressing gown I wear when it isn't so cold. My housecoat is never called my dressing gown and my dressing gown is never called my housecoat. (Scottish, near Glasgow)

Central belt of Scotland - dressing gown. Housecoat sometimes heard in my youth, but for quilted dressing gowns (full lengths). The overall things would be pinnies.

I never heard goonie for nightdress till I moved to Edinburgh.

I still remember the thrill of going into hospital at 7 and getting my very own quilted dressing gown, never worn by anyone else, pale blue with flowers. I'd had hand me downs before then and the blue beauty replaced a bright orange, probably hideously flammable and shedding little bits of stuffing, quilted gown that had been handed through umpteen families. It was so nice to get something new.

Dressing gown (Norfolk)
House coat DH (Suffolk)

My Nanny had a house coat, which was a pink gingham affair. So I've always thought DH was just plain wrong ;-)

Dressing gown. Berkshire.

Housecoat -working class SE London
Dressing gown sounds poncy.

OOAML that gave me a flashback memory of a particularly vibrant orange, polydangerous, quilted bed spread with brown piping.
The stuffing asbestos? was an unusual texture and seeped out.

Between that and ceiling tiles fuck knows how we survived.

Essex, its a dressing gown!
My mum had a 'housecoat' in the 70s. Blue with pink flowers down one side and very long.
I love my two, i would live in them if i could! ( but i dont as i have to dress for work and stuff)

Dressing gown- Scotland

I'm Scottish and would call it a dressing gown?

Or a goonie!!!! That's the REAL Scottish term

Dressing gown here in Wiltshire.
House coats are à la Hilda Ogden 😀

Dressing gown, Rural Northern Ireland. To me housecoat is the old fashioned quilted one that buttons and housedress is like the one pictured like you would wear for cleaning

Dressing gown, West Yorkshire
My gran used to call both her dressing gown and her apron ( it was a thin nylon jacket like thing), her housecoat.

Manchester, dressing gown
Only ever heard the term housecoat on mumsnet

Robe (american)

TBH, my first thought was 'do people still wear those?'

Dressing gown or bathrobe - Manchester

FannyWisdom. Quilted bedspread with weird almost chiffony trim? I also had a nighty that got loads of static, I used to amuse myself by making it flash - hard to describe but it was like uber static, presumably from all the weird polyester and nylon that was about. I'm surprised I didn't set fire to something.