Dot's Etiquette -1956

City dresses and country dresses. I wish we still needed to know...

DAYTIME DRESSES

1. Appropriateness. The only thing that needs to be emphasized about daytime dresses is that you should buy what looks well on you, on your particular figure and size, rather than what is being featured in the salons. Also, don't think that because you have a basic color scheme -say, black shoes and purse and hat -you can wear only a black dress. At a New York cocktail party, for instance, so many women invariably wear black that to see a woman in a red dress (or a purple or green one) is remarkably refreshing.

2. For those on a budget. In buying on a budget, remember that clothes with simple lines don't date as fast as those that are intricately styled.

3. Summer Dresses. In summer, country dresses can be just as gay as you like, and city dresses are much less formal than they used to be. Cottons are completely accepted now for city wear and, though dark-colored ones are more practical for the office, there is nothing wrong with bright colors or pastels if you can change often enough to keep them clean. Summer dressy clothes in the city -particularly those worn by young women -are more and more bare and gay, so that nowadays a crowd at a Broadway theatre in August would be practically identical in dress to a crowd at a dinner party in a small town in Iowa.

-from Etiquette: The Complete Modern Guide For Day-To-Day Living The Correct Way
By Frances Benton

May you be ever so bare and gay this summer!

See original post.