Bedgown

A bedgown (sometimes bed gown, bedjacket or shortgown) is an article of women's clothing for the upper body, usually thigh-length and wrapping or tying in front. Bedgowns of lightweight printed cotton fabric were fashionable at-home morning wear in the 18th century. Over time, bedgowns (also called in this context shortgowns) became the staple upper garment of British and American female working-class street wear from the 18th to early 19th centuries, worn over petticoats and often topped with an apron. Made of sturdy cotton, linen, wool or linsey-woolsey, these bedgowns were simply cut to a T-shaped pattern, and were worn overlapped in front or with the front skirts cutaway.^[1] The term "bed gown" to describe this item of clothing was used as late as 1876.^[2]

In the Welsh spelling betgwn, the bedgown is part of traditional Welsh costume.^[3]

Bedgowns lingered as fashion garments into the mid-20th century, usually under the newer name bedjackets, in the form of short robes or wrappers worn over a nightgown or negligee for warmth and modesty while sitting up in bed for breakfast, reading, or similar pursuits. They had mostly fallen out of fashion by the 1960s.

• 1750–75 in Western fashion

• Ashelford, Jane: The Art of Dress: Clothes and Society 1500–1914, Abrams, 1996. (ISBN 0-8109-6317-5)
• Baumgarten, Linda (2002). What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300095807.

• Making an 18th-century bedgown
• Clothes for Work at the Manchester Galleries
• 18th century bedgowns