tell me a tea gown is not specifically for drinking tea in. either way they're gorgeous
No, they are not specifically for drinking tea. :) They are a cross between a robe or “wrapper” and a formal ball gown, becoming a sort of fancy dressing gown. They were generally worn at home, and didn’t require a corset or a assisting dresser.
The lines get a bit blurry over when/where they can be worn over the years, but generally, they were worn at home or when visiting the home of a close family member or friend.
Here’s what Emily Post has to say:
"Every one knows that a tea-gown is a hybrid between a wrapper and a ball dress. It has always a train and usually long flowing sleeves; is made of rather gorgeous materials and goes on easily, and its chief use is not for wear at the tea-table so much as for dinner alone with one’s family. It can, however, very properly be put on for tea, and if one is dining at home, kept on for dinner. Otherwise a lady is apt to take tea in whatever dress she had on for luncheon, and dress after tea for dinner. One does not go out to dine in a tea-gown except in the house of a member of one’s family or a most intimate friend. One would wear a tea-gown in one’s own house in receiving a guest to whose house one would wear a dinner dress. – Emily Post, Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home, 1922.”
For more information, The Dreamstress wrote an entire article about them.
