What shape pinny do you prefer? Are you a waisted apron kinda girl? The ever so sensible sort drowning in a Victorian maids style frilly affair? A flirty dirty kinda housewife in a fluted apron with a heart shaped neckline?  A pretty Cath Kidston floral apron lady?  A smock wearing artist?

While the housewives smock conjures up, in my mind at least, the sort of checked nylon tabard affairs, last seen on my school dinner ladies, it is the shape that seems to me,to be the most sensible when there is work to be done but you don't want to scare the life out of passing gas men who seem to regard women in pinnies as kinky throwbacks or worse, little girls playing house.

While I suspect the perfect apron varies according to the shape of it's wearer (I look like a sack of potatoes in a long apron and still I tra la la around the house in one of my wardrobe of snazzy florals), I have always secretly yearned for an apron that was the modern equivalent of the housekeepers "house coat" something that doesn't look like a dressing gown, protects my clothes, and offers a nod to retro styling without making me look like I'm imitating June Cleaver the day wine o'clock came a little sooner than it should...

Et voila, I happened across this pretty goodness knows what, currently being offered for sale by Etsy seller La Vida Vintage and it strikes me as the perfect answer: an apron top I could slip over a long sleeved T-shirt and not feel too mortified if I forget I'm wearing and make it half way to the school gates with my coat over over the top and my barbie pink rose apron trailing beyond it, as I did the other day.

I know. The shame of it. But I'm from Liverpool. Girls here nip to the shops in their pyjamas and wear curlers around town on a Saturday afternoon...