Its a housecoat

[Helplessandheartbroke]

Dressing gowns are silky and posh like Hugh hefner style. Warm fluffy housecoats are housecoats not dressing gowns.....

This sums it up perfectly.

Housecoats are for doing the cleaning in.

Indeed not. A smoking jacket is just the ticket as you flick your ash whilst calling everyone “dear boy”

These Goonies and peenys sound like euphemisms for children to call their genitals.

I remember my mum wearing a housecoat. It was to do the cleaning and cooking. Saved her clothes better than an apron. Some shop assistants would have worn similar.

Not a term you hear nowadays.

My mum used to wear a lightly quilted housecoat to do the housework in, in the 60’s. When I had my first part time job in a shop, we wore something similar in poly cotton but called them overalls, something like this

Yes! A peeny! It could be one that went round your waist or a sleeveless crossover one à la Hilda Ogden. The ‘housecoat’ was called a nylon overall in my family, often worn by ladies who worked in our local corner shops…(mum favoured her peeny) dressing gown is worn over pyjamas…and I love my lovely, cosy fluffy one! ❤️

This is an apron or overall for me. Our dinner ladies used to wear them

All called dressing gowns in my book. I don’t know anyone who calls it a house coat.

I have googled housecoats recently. I always feel that when I’m dressed for something I’m more likely to do it. Like putting on rubber gloves means I tackle the bathrooms and messy jobs.
What I came up with looked like what some people made their housemaids wear when I lived in the Gulf. I think I’ll stick to leggings and t shirts.

I’m not a native speaker, but recently I’ve started caling it a house coat. I’m so freezing I wear my dressing gown over my usual clothes at home (tracksuits, jeans, several layers of tops), it’s more fitting to call it housecoat.
If it’s over pyjamas, it’s still a dressing gown. :-)

Sybil would have definitely called that a peignoir

Further refinement of the terminology-

Overalls are jumpsuits worn over your clothes to protect them while you work

An overall is a cotton version of a housecoat, worn over your clothes to protect them while you work.

A tabard is what dinner ladies used to wear- front and back with tabs at the sides.

Dressing gowns are fleece or towelling. Bathrobes are definitely towelling.

Housecoats are synthetic, often at least partially gingham, and worn over your clothes so you don't get them dirty/smelly when cleaning, as modelled by my nan in the 90s.

Oh, I forgot the lightly quilted ones. Nan had one of those too. A little more decent than a dressing gown, as it had poppers, worn over her nighty when sorting out breakfast for us grand-children before she went up to actually get dressed. Yeah, that's a housecoat too. But I say it differently in my head somehow to tell the difference between those and the cleaning ones....

Defo both synthetic though.. the men's version of the housecoat was cotton, and called a shop coat.

A dressing gown by any other name is still a dressing gown. If you wear it over pyjamas and it has a belt it's a dressing gown. Over clothes with buttons is a house coat.

I agree with this.

I’m Scottish and housecoat was something the nanas wore in the 70s, nylon, floral, often over clothes during day to protect whilst doing nana work 😂

I haven't seen the word housecoat used since the I Love Lucy TV series, which propably predates the birth of many mumsnetters......🤣

They are dressing gowns. The silky satiny feather or lace-trimned ones you refer to are negligees. (There should be an accent above one of the es, but this dictionary doesn't know that)

Funnily enough, I came across this on YouTube , very dated but interesting. And featured what I would call housecoats

Mine (very long, warm fleece) is a dressing gown.
‘Housecoat’ makes me think of the quilted floral things, mostly nylon, that were all over the place in the 70s.

OP you are wrong. Dressing gown - worn prior to dressing or mid dressing (hence the name). Worn over nightwear or underwear or nothing.

Housecoat was a separate item to be worn over outdoor clothes while doing jobs round the house so normal clothes didn’t get dirty. Housecoats were usually fastened with buttons or hooks or poppers, not just wrap and fabric belt so it would stay fastened while cleaning.

these are separate items for separate purposes and the material doesn’t matter.

if you wouldn’t put your fluffy “housecoat” over normal outdoor clothes, it’s a dressing gown, even if you’ve mixed up what the terms mean.

Agree. I have never knowingly used the term housecoat though.

I was going to say as an English person living in Scotland I noticed that dressing gowns are housecoats here. To me a housecoat is one of those Hilda Ogden ones you wear over your clothes . Complete with headscarf and curlers !

I always thought the thin garments women wore over their clothes while doing housework, were called pinnies, or pinafores. TBH I will always think ‘Nora Batty’….

My DM (born 1918) did her own housework until her 70s, and never wore one.)