tea dress

English

Tea dress (1899)

Tea dress

Alternative forms

• tea-dress, teadress

Noun

tea dress (plural tea dresses)

1. Synonym of tea-gown
   • 2007, Frances Hoffman, Ryan Taylor, Much to Be Done: Private Life in Ontario from Victorian Diaries, page 138:

     Miss Hawthorne was here all day to make me a 5 o'clock tea dress.

   • 2010, Helen Simonson, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, page 150:

     'I suppose I'll wear my Victorian tea dress again,' said Grace. 'Maybe I can borrow a pith helmet or something.'

   • 2015, Vicky Straker, Afternoon Tea: A History and Guide to the Great Edwardian Tradition:

     To anger the writer further, the tea dress was seen as extravagant with its only being worn once or twice before a new dress was thought necessary by fashionable ladies.

2. A short, semiformal, dress appropriate for afternoon tea or similar occasions, relaxed enough for dancing, and usually made of light printed fabric.
   • 2009, Design Museum Enterprise Ltd., Fifty Dresses that Changed the World:

     The tea dress conjures up the quintessence of traditional Englishness. Both feminine and formal, it is nonetheless relaxed enough to be worn at all manner of social occasions from a summer wedding or garden party to a drink in the local pub. Because of its attractive versatility, the flowery, floaty tea dress has been immune to generations of catwalk trends.

   • 2014, Kerstin Rodgers, Ms Marmite Lover's Secret Tea Party:

     The tea dress can be worn with heels or flats, buttoned up for a prim look or undone for a more sensual, casual vibe. It suits every figure. The Second World War tea dress often had little puffed sleeves with small pads in the shoulders and a sweeheart neckline.

   • 2017, Twigs Way, Tea Gardens:

     The tea dance gave rise to the distinctive 'tea dress' suitable for afternoon wear but allowing movement for dancing, a fashion which thrived through the 1930s and '40s and had a revival in the nostalgic early twenty-first century.