Sleepwear has emerged as a major fashion trend. This is good news for me since I live in my favorite jammies until mid-afternoon most weekends. Yet, stylists are pushing the pajama boundaries, dressing their favorite model — aka one of Taylor Swift’s best friends — in slinky negligees or robes and sending them out in public, as in out to dinner, out to a movie and out to the Met Gala. The latter to which, once again, I was not invited. Shocker.
This is bad news for me unless a sweat shirt and pants count for haute couture.
I’ve never been a fashion goddess, but this latest fad seems to be a stretch. Admittedly, this is coming from the woman who wears a cotton night shirt purchased during the Reagan years. Floral nightgowns with smocking will make a comeback, just you wait.
So, I’m a little sleepwear challenged. All this pajama fuss stirs up a painful memory.
When pregnant with my daughter, I was on medical bed rest for 12 weeks. My doctor mandated restricted activity, limiting my productivity. I knew the key to my emotional sanity was to somehow stay busy. So, I rented a hospital over-bed table, churned out work and essays on my laptop and caught up on reading. I even re-arranged my bedroom thanks to patient family and friends who moved the dresser and TV stand at the direction of the pregnant woman barking orders from the comfort of her mattress.
Soon after I was put on bed rest, I found out my daughter was breech and would require a Caesarean birth, not my preference, but the best and safest choice. Preparing for surgery once I made it to 36 weeks pregnant, I used my bed-turned-command-center to study up on C-sections and post-surgery healing. I called other moms for help with my 2-year-old son so he’d have play dates after mama and newborn little sister came home from the hospital. I made a meal schedule for my husband and hired a painter to finish my son’s new room since baby girl was getting the nursery. I even finished a couple of long-term work projects in advance.
However, what I failed to do was pack a decent-looking pair of pajamas for my hospital stay. Not once did I think about what I’d wear in the hospital, which was a foregone conclusion where I would end up. Granted, in the grand scheme of things, this wasn’t a priority, but, I kind of had a heck of a lot of time on my hands in my bedroom boardroom.
Which is why the first photo of me holding my newborn daughter in my hospital bed has me attired in what can only be best described as nightwear for a lumberjack. The woven wool nightgown looked like the worst version of a tartan with red, green and blue criss-crossed lines, like Clan of the Can’t-You-Do-Better?
No lovely pale-pink Grace Kellyesque two-piece with matching furry slip-on slippers for me. Nuh-huh, honey, give me flannel and lots of it. I don’t recall owning that gown. Maybe I bought it online when the only online options were poorly designed pajamas? www.plaidpjs.com?
So, it’s safe to say you won’t see me out and about in a silk slip dress, nor flannel nightgown. I’d like to think this is my gift to humanity, sparing shame and wool fabric for none to see.
