Out of the Bedroom

Now that the holiday season is upon the land and men and women gird and girdle themselves for the festive round, more often than not. and more often than ever before, they are finding themselves welcomed by hostesses wearing what seem to be bathrobes. Once they might have backed away in confusion, certain they had arrived too early or too late. But the hour is right, and so, they have learned, is the hostess' dress.

There were always a few hostess gowns around, worn by the outre set, but in recent months, the revolution in chez nous apparel has spread to split-level suburbia and high-level city apartments. Although the one-piece version looks like a bathrobe and feels like a bathrobe, it is not a bathrobe because it 1 ) is not worn over a nightgown, and 2) costs more. But the price of hostess gowns is dropping as swiftly as their popularity is rising; last week Gimbels in Manhattan showed models costing less than $15 in its store windows. Fast catching up is a two-piece version--a full-length skirt worn with its own top or mixed and matched with something else.

Whatever its material from burlap to brocade, a hostess gown assures the lady of the house comfort, glamour, and a kind of one-upmanship on her guests. After a day over the old hot stove, she can slip quickly and ungirdled into the easy camouflage of full-length draperies. And while her guests have had to settle for party dresses of unspectacular street length (the better to get in and out of cabs or family cars), they are sure to find their basic blacks outshone by the lady in skirts who rustles out from the kitchen with an air of Pre-Raphaelite elegance. She is a sort of walking conversation piece--at least for the evening, the classiest girl around.

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