The Terror of Comfy Clothes

A couple of weeks ago Maggie Alderson (who writes a regular column in the Good Weekend supplement of the SMH) wrote a piece about the ‘unbearableness’ of wearing clothes. Though I don’t read her column every week, I believe she had a pretty long period of illness and was finding it hard to get back into civilian clothes. She wrote, “When you stop pushing yourself into them daily, clothes become unbearable.” And later, “Now I understand why toddlers take everything off at the first possible opportunity. Clothes are terrible.” (GW, April 24, 2010)

I quite agree! As a byproduct from being extremely scrupulous about hygiene during ‘J’’s long illness, I have a ritual of washing hands (and feet, if we’ve been wearing sandals or thongs) with my 2 ½ year old daughter whenever we come home from being out. We also change our clothes. Especially if we are home after a morning out and it is the middle of the day. This is my favourite clothes change. Oh the pleasure of taking off our ‘out and about clothes’ and slipping into comfy PJs! (Today it’s cotton flannel for ‘L’, stretchy viscose for ever expanding and pregnant me.) This is something that my husband ‘A’ cannot understand and as a consequence remains in what I would call ‘good clothes’ all day long. I do feel sorry for him not being able to experience the pleasure of this ritual but he prefers to be able to leave the house at a moment’s notice and not discover he’s wearing pyjamas when he does. I frankly bask in the glory of this ritual. And now that ‘L’ doesn’t have a daytime sleep, just putting on this comfy ‘at home’ outfit is enough of a luxury to induce a state of relaxation for me.

Whilst ‘L’s PJs mostly match and have a good number of buttons on them, my own outfits are strictly for family eyes only. I have, however, recently been caught out in my own private relaxing outfit by my sister in law ‘F’ who arrived at our house for dinner ten minutes early. I made a joke about being seconds away from slipping into something a lot cooler (or just normal would have been fine). I did have a black leopard print singlet and plain black pants in my hand as I answered the front door! And even though I waved them in front of her, nothing could distract her from the glaring garish colour swirl of my amazingly comfy outfit. I tried making a joke of it by reminding her that a love of ‘dag fashion’ is something of a family tradition. My brother ‘D’ looked up and smiled, which was kind of him, considering he was wearing a very nice creamy Tommy Hilfiger cable knit at the time, and looked a lot closer to being in Chuck Bass’* family at that moment than mine. Poor stylish ‘F’ couldn’t help it and exclaimed, “That outfit is truly terrible!”

She was so right. I was wearing a very old and very comfortable thai dye t-shirt, (you know the fabulous softness that only comes from a t-shirt that has survived a thousand washes in the machine? Such a stayer!) with ¾ length pink and white gingham pants. The obvious clash of styles here aside, the t-shirt is probably the main problem with this outfit: Yellow, crimson, green and grey all congealing together. I know from the ladies at my mum’s church that I am a ‘winter’** (black, pink etc) so not a good look for me, or to be fair, anyone not holidaying in Bali in the 70s. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and what must have looked like a rainbow had vomited on me to ‘F’, is like a technicolour explosion of blissed out relaxation to my eyes.

“This is my most relaxing outfit!” I wanted to shout proudly. But instead quickly slipped into my bedroom and changed.

I rescued this offending item from the throw out pile of my mother in law’s partner ‘R’ (a man who loves t-shirts so much he has different categories for them depending on how many times they have been washed and the staying power of the cotton.)*** I can tell you he was on to a winner here. I have loved it ever since and find its gross unfashionableness inversely proportional to its comfort.

I guess I too have categories for t-shirts. There’s extremely private, and extremely relaxing thai dye. This is not a t-shirt I would consider taking the bin out in anymore. Though an old Linkin Park t-shirt, (rescued from ‘A’’s throw outs) would be fine. It is black after all. Then there’s all the other ones that I can wear just about anywhere I like but would certainly not be a contender for my favourite part of the day: relaxing hour.

This whole experience has been such an eye opener. ‘F’ is so much more stylish than I could ever hope to be. I thought this recently as I marveled at her relaxed elegance wearing a black floaty kaftan down to the beach. At the same time I wondered fleetingly if I would still be able to fit into my XL pink Mambo ‘Skate or Die!’ t-shirt for the final month of my pregnancy? Lucy’s response to this t-shirt is: “Oh wow mummy, you look beautiful!’ Which, though I’m sure I am to her, is probably pretty far off the mark from what everyone else is thinking. But it doesn’t matter. Clothes are terrible. And I love some awful ones. But clothes set an important tone. I would feel more stylish in ‘F’’s kaftan but it wouldn’t be right on me. I’d feel frankly uncomfortable and overdressed for my home beach, where like the privacy of my own house during toddler rest time, I want to feel comfortable and myself. Nothing does that for me quite like: Skate or Die! Or thai die and gingham! When I’m slobbing it, I would warn you that some outfits may be disturbing, but are oh so comfortable for me, should I be brave enough to answer the door in them.

* One of the many well-dressed young men in the teen TV series, Gossip Girl.
** This is a method of dressing where your colouring (hair, eyes, skin, etc) are matched to a season, and then you try and stick to the palette of the season that suits you.
*** Incidentally my daughter ‘L’ categorises her t-shirts as well. The most comfy are ‘my good-sleeved shirts’, which are $5 Aldi t-shirts with ‘eco chick’ written on them. And I must say, are made from some pretty good quality cotton. A daughter after my own heart.