Walking from class to our campus Starbucks, I ran into a colleague from another department.
“Oh, I can see you have acclimatized to the Midwest completely!” she exclaimed with a smile.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, you are wearing a house dress to class,” she replied.
I don’t know what a house dress is, but I’m fairly certain I never possessed such a garment. I’m wearing my Jones New York dress. It’s expensive and beautiful. And I’m wearing it for the very first time today.
A house dress, my ass.
Clarissa's Blog 
What a bitch thing to say.
LikeLike
I’m pretty sure she was well intended. I still have no idea what the difference between a house dress and a normal dress is though.
LikeLike
I think house dress means comfy dress?
LikeLike
I just looked up pictures of house dresses on Google Images and they look like nightgowns, mostly.
LikeLike
Huh? I’m a Midwesterner, born and raised, and I’ve never heard of a house dress before.
LikeLike
This colleague is actually not from the Midwest. 🙂 She is a Californian. This must have been her own set of prejudices speaking.
LikeLike
“House dress” sounds like the nightgown of Pochita that Olga takes out of the closet at Panteleon’s apartment and asks, “This is what decent women wear to sleep in?”
LikeLike
That is NOT a house dress! and yes, a bitchy comment.
LikeLike
THANK YOU! I needed to hear this.
LikeLike
I think of house dresses as wrap style (so you can throw them over whatever to answer the door presentably) although I have no idea if this is a common idea. If it is, that is probably where your colleague is coming from, since that dress looks like a wrap even though it isn’t. I can’t imagine saying something like that though, nor would it ever occur to me to call that particular dress a house dress.
LikeLike
Sounds very rude to me. Maybe she is either a very poor communicator or it was a passive-aggressive type of comment. I really don’t know, but maybe her style of dress would provide some clues as well.
LikeLike