CASUAL EVERYDAYS A dose of vitamin D in your garden can make always-on work culture more bearable. Here, model Jessica Mau in a Natalie Martin dress.
AT A CERTAIN point mid-pandemic, when I was preoccupied by the world’s actually demanding problems, it began to feel like too much effort to put on a top and then a bottom—even if they added up to a cozy tie-dyed sweatsuit. I wanted to slip on one item that asked nothing as far as buttons and zippers go. My answer: the housedress.
The definition of this seemingly anachronistic garment has evolved. My trusty “Fairchild Dictionary of Fashion” (a 2003 edition of a 1975 tome) sums it up thusly: “A simple inexpensive dress made of washable fabric, worn while doing household chores. In the early 20th [century] it was called a wrapper.” The wrapper, the book notes, was one of the first items mass-produced by the garment industry, and descended from a woman’s dressing gown. The picture beside this entry depicts a nip-waisted, puff-sleeved dress, the sort Lucille Ball might put on to putter around her apartment in “I Love Lucy.”
“ As our home and work lives intermingle more than ever, housedresses represent a happy medium, a coalescence. ”
It bears little resemblance to the housedresses that my 94-year-old Italian nonna has worn for decades: mid-length, zippered floral numbers in a shiny jersey fabric, with cavernous pockets that usually harbor a rosary, some hard candies, tissues and a few sprigs of herbs. My version of the housedress—voluminous, printed, usually vintage, zipper-less and with a whiff of caftan—deviates slightly further. Nowadays, perhaps the housedress, instead of adhering to a specific style, need simply suggest a certain housebound mood.
“Think of it as an attitude,” advised Maddie Bailis, a buyer at Bird, the Brooklyn-based chainlet of boutiques. So, what makes the cut? “First and foremost it must be as easy to put on as it is to take off,” she said, citing pop-over shapes or wrap styles with simple ties by brands like Black Crane, CP Shades or Pleats Please by Issey Miyake. The forgiving silhouette should never confine the body. Brooklyn stylist Melissa Ventosa Martin also favors the free-form: “I want a bit of ease so I can go for a walk or curl up with a book without feeling constrained.” She prefers versions by designers Doen, Vita Kin and Line Sander Johansen.
Just like my nonna, Suzie de Rohan Willner, the CEO of British lifestyle brand Toast, prioritizes practical pockets when weighing the success of a housedress. A spartan design from her brand reminds her of her first husband’s mother, the Norwegian portrait artist Vesla Stranger. “She used to wear artist smocks as a housedress…each day,” said Ms. de Rohan Willner. “I adopted [the style] when I was pregnant and recently I have found myself returning to the look which, while comfortable, also feels incredibly chic.”
In another interpretation, the housedress can also hint at what would traditionally be considered intimate apparel, said Carmen Hawk, owner of popular Los Angeles boutique Avalon Vintage. Her favorite housedress icon is Jessica Lange’s depression-era character in “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” In the film, Ms. Lange wears sultry styles including a wrap dress and a sheer, flouncy, white piece. They’re one step up from a nightgown, one step down from a dress you’d go to dinner in. To find similar styles, search Etsy for “vintage housedress,” and tailor them to fit. If you’ll be hopping on work Zooms throughout your day, be sure that your antique garment comes equipped with both sleeves and a sufficiently high neckline.
Your housedress shouldn’t be too precious, so avoid chichi fabrics: Lightweight cottons or linens have a breezy appeal and are, crucially, easy to launder. The housedress is “completely anti-dry-clean-only,” explained Ms. Bailis. “It’s something you’re OK with getting a little babka dough on.” Go ahead and balance your laptop, your kid’s sippy cup and a mug of morning coffee on your lap.
The garment’s core principle, after all, is its practicality, its ability to stoically endure the work of the day—no matter what that work is. Ms. Bailis cited artist Georgia O’Keeffe, a fan of black and white shapeless pieces, as a paragon of housedress style. The dresses Ms. O’Keeffe favored were often by Marimekko, a Finnish brand whose designs at least one midcentury critic found definitively housedress-y. An article in New York’s Herald Tribune on a 1959 exhibition of Marimekko samples said: “In a New Englander’s estimation a [thing] is beautiful only if it is first useful. And the Finnish pieces are just that…These fashions should appeal to a New Englander’s sense of the practical, for, although pretty enough to wear downtown, all are meant to be used as housedresses…for doing work in the house or garden.”
As our home and work lives intermingle more than ever, housedresses represent a happy medium, a coalescence. In these increasingly uncertain times, there’s comfort in knowing that you’re dressed right for ambiguity. And perhaps some pleasure too. “Sweatpants are practical,” Ms. de Rohan Willner said, “but they lack the joy of a housedress.”
HOUSEDRESSES FOR NON-HOUSEWIVES
These simple pieces will take you from an online work presentation to a casual family BBQ in the backyard, without the risk of feeling overdressed
From left: For the lawyer who’s been bingeing Sofia Coppola films in her downtime: Dress, $218, Doen, 818-691-0308; For the tech exec who will try any getting-ready-faster hack: Munthe Dress, $385, net-a-porter.com; For the Chief People Officer who loves having people over: Dress, $925, ladoublej.com
The Wall Street Journal is not compensated by retailers listed in its articles as outlets for products. Listed retailers frequently are not the sole retail outlets.
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