tea dresses (+/- leggings) - when do you wear them?

[CristinaTheAstonishing]

1. I've seen lots of tea dresses in shops and online. When do you wear them? They seem nice out of context but 50s housewife housecoat when it comes to wearing them.

1. Said tea dresses when v short seem to be worn with knee-length leggings. Is this new or some fashion that passed me by and already on its way out?

bumping as puzzling me

don't like them with leggings, looks a bit too much like support hose. actually i don't like them at all, too floaty unless one is 17, in which case wouldn't be wearing a pretty frock.

The women I saw were not 17! That's what puzzled me so much, I think. (I'm 42, so I'd be in the housewife/housecoat category rather than the 1980s Madonna look.)

And where do you buy leggins. I never see them in shops. (I think I could do the tea dress with leggins thing )sound good, but I need a link,I've never seen this look.

something like this

Topshop did some short leggings.

To me she looks like she has on my massive long magic knickers and she does not realise that they are showing under her dress.

Trying to imagine how magic knickers go with twinset and pearls. Yeah, actually they would

I got some leggings from M&S of all places.

I have a few tea dresses but they are v short so I wear them over skinny jeans with hels.

lol Cristina, an image that really needs google images

i don't like the leggings poking out.....so i've reverted to what i used to do in my youth. I've been to American Apparel and got a pair of cycling shorts. I can now dress how i want and still look after my active 3 year old without flashing my comfy knickers at all and sundry.

This time round i'm not wearing my floaty dresses with Dr Marten boots though

(well maybe, i'm getting all nostalgic now)

oh queenrollo - my teenage years as a Smiths fan wearing second hand tea dresses and Dr Marten boots came flooding back!

Sadly all these years on and I am sitting here at my desk in a tea dress (jigsaw rather than oxfam now) but with silver birkies instead!

I love wearing footless tights and a friend who is a model (oh la lay) says that all the models just cut the feet out of 70 denier tights so that the footless tight ends on the slim part of the leg...

I'm wearing cropped black leggings under a dress right now! The leggings go just under the knee and were £4 in New Look and the dress is a strappy bias-cut above-the-knee former-cocktail-turned-sun-dress with a black cardi. Best shoes with it are wedgy-heeled mule sandals but flat sandals work too. I'm 31 and 6m pg (dress has some elastane content) and trying v hard to convince DH that Morrissey is a good middle name.