44 27 February 2021 | The Guardian Weekend
Sometime last s pring, time stopped. We were
ham strung by the disappearance of our routines,
and the ones we developed in their place felt
a bit as if we were acting in a play called Life.
Unfortunately, dressing in any sort of traditionally
respectable way was one of the things that fell by
the wayside.
There were no longer offi ce clothes or going- out
clothes; now, there were just survival clothes.
The y looked strangely familiar – like the clothes
you wore on a Sunday when you wondered
whether you could be bothered to leave the house
to buy some eggs. They looked like the indistinct
items you threw on to take out the bins, when you
hoped the darkness of night would hide you from
the eyes of your neighbours.
Yes, they were the yoga pants, the name of
which you respectfully decided
you’d amend because you’d only
done the fi rst Yoga With Adriene ,
and then got bored. Or the pyjamas
that gradually lost their defi nition
because you didn’t take them off
until the unidentifi ed stain made the
postal worker look nervous. After
four days. In fact, you are almost
certainly reading this column in
your pyjamas, no matter what the
time of day. But that’s OK. This is a
no-judg ment zone.
Because loungewear – that’s
pyjamas – has been going up in the
world. No less than Mark Ronson
and Antoni Porowski from Queer
Eye have worn them out in public. W hen red
carpets were still a thing, we saw lots of pyjama-
outfi t hybrids, from Billie Eilish in a grown- up
romper suit at the Grammys (actually custom-
made Gucci) to actors LaK eith Stanfi eld and
Mahershala Ali wearing “ robe suits ” (which look
like something Sean Connery’s James Bond might
have worn when he was, you know, chilling).
This makes it OK for those of us who are
slightly lazier, and more thrifty, to think that
wearing one outfi t the entire time is actually fi ne.
Today, I’m wearing a two-piece with slippers and
eye-mask; I feel retro classy, like Hugh Hefner
before he was problematic. As an outfi t, it is easily
smarter than 99% of the clothes I own. The soft
cotton fabric makes it feel like a dream but, no
matter how smart it looks, I would be hesitant
to leave the house dressed like this: it’s too close
to one of those anxiety dreams, the ones where
you accidentally walk into the road wearing
your jim-jams The
wardrobe
remix
Yo u r n e w
two-piece?
A pair of
retro classy
pyjamas
1 Blue tee and shorts, both £35, thewhitecompany.com
2 Leaf print bottoms, £69, driftsleepwear.com
3 Pink, £125, by Cleverly Laundry, from mrporter.com
4 Grey linen, £100, pigletinbed.com
5 Blue fi sh pattern, £27.50, marksandspencer.comPriya wears orange tiger top, trousers, and eye
mask, £190 for the set, by Desmond & Dempsey,
from matchesfashion.com. Slippers, £68,
desmondanddempsey.com99
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Fashion Priya Elan
PHOTOGRAPH: DAVID NEWBY/THE GUARDIAN. STYLING: MELANIE WILKINSON. GROOMING: SOPHIE HIGGINSON USING TOM FORD BEAUTY AND KIEHL’S
HAIRCARE. STYLING ASSISTANT: PETER BEVAN
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