With Spring upon us, I’d like to know what happened to plain white drawstring boxy pyjama bottoms?
We may no longer rock certain lingerie pieces, but not unlike the classic little black dress, these dreamy cotton bottoms are a staple in any woman’s closet, no matter your age. Not even Amazon, the colossal empire of consumerism, carries this definitive piece.
I found my cotton bottoms in a second-hand store. The top was missing, and they cost me a cool $5.00. I was cavalier while wearing them and damaged them with ink. Knowing I got my price per wear a thousand times over, I let them go thinking no biggy; I’d find another pair. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I discovered it’s easier to find a coveted vintage Chanel handbag in a second-hand store than to find these. The thing about them is that they are incredibly sexy. It doesn’t matter your body type or build; they work on everyone. They must be lightweight, crisp cotton, so they’re not sheer, drawstring, not elasticized so that you can wear them around your waist or, if you prefer, rolled over your hips. They need to be long, so you can wear them that way or gently roll them into loose cropped pants, as they’ll hold the shape because of the weight of the cotton. Not dissimilar to the weight of a beautifully constructed white shirt. The wide boxy leg from hip to ankle is highly flattering. These remarkably simple bottoms are versatile and make for a fabulous look with a fitted tank or t-shirt. Some sandals or flip flops; throw on a kick-ass jean jacket, and voila, you are hot as you take your trash to the curb or wave to the neighbours.
Men’s pyjamas have always been essential for me. They don’t try. All my bathrobes are men’s because they’re luxurious—extra-long, better selections in cotton, solid colours and modern patterns. I will not wear flowers or something covered in rodents or bunnies. Men’s bathrobes come with generous shawl collars, and I’m particularly enamoured with the vintage robes that mimic a smoking jacket. Like everything in my life, I want my pj’s to fulfill a larger mandate than just sleep, and I want to feel great and look good wearing them. A fabulous robe invariably serves as a sweater substitute.
Many mainstream lingerie lines and boutiques carry a stunning selection of undergarments if you’re a size 2 with legs that go from here to the moon and a bosom to match. Outside of that, it might as well be haute couture, where the styles are limited to specific sizes, and you’re not one of them. A girlfriend and I both tried on identical lingerie sets. She laughed hysterically, and I stood there shocked, unaware that my body had changed as significantly as it had. The lingerie failed to highlight any part that still looked great. Mainstream designs fail us. Dictating styles that are not conducive to looking sensational on us. Therein lays the quandary. There’s less than a meagre selection designed for us warrior angels.
They have wireless bras now, not like when we were growing up, and seamless undergarments that are an excellent addition. Sporting a fitted t-shirt with no lines is a simple and elegant look. We need to be rockin’ what we have: healthy, gorgeous bodies.
There is now underwear for your menses. Too late for us, but what took them so long? Our spaghetti-looking affectionately labelled ‘period underwear’ looked like a crime scene. In the day, you wore a hammock with a belt balancing a Kotex pad tied at each end. We were essentially balancing a brick between our legs like walking a tightrope. A cross between Cirque Du Soleil and Nik Wallenda. If you chose to wear pants instead of a dress, everyone and their dog would know you were menstruating. There were no adhesives on the pads, also called napkins, because, like sticky notes, they weren’t invented yet. They’d push out through one’s slacks with the exact lines you didn’t want anyone to notice. They were napkins on steroids—an archaic menstrual diaper at a time when fashion was all about slinky, clingy jerseys and satins. I could understand back then the reluctance to wear white during our cycles but not today. Anything goes because there are choices in products and undergarments. But white boxy cotton pj’s bottoms. Fuhgeddaboudit.
You can find pyjama bottoms made of jersey material or super wide ones in linen or satin, but 100% cotton doesn’t exist. We finally reach an age we can wear all the white we want and not be afraid of our periods, and you can’t find that one staple anywhere, and there are tens of millions of us.
Now that we’re older, companies need to create sexy lingerie for our demographic and designs that step out of the obvious and into the more creative. Perhaps they can add flattering elements like something to capture a fart or a tiny bit of leakage and not design something that a babushka would wear while gardening turnips. Like everything else, lingerie changes as we age. I get that. But we can still have sexy boxer-like pieces with rounded seams and more of a ‘boyfriend’ style with matching panty and bra sets. Not the stuff I’ve seen of late, which is a massive amount of flowers covering a large portion of real estate or looks like a test pattern from days gone by. What happened to pretty, elegant and modern? We have a bosom, an ass, and a well-travelled body, so decorate us to flatter that type of terrain. We’re gently used, not used up and need not be covered in prints our mothers use to drape over their windows or kitchen tables.
If we have bat wings. Big deal. We can still crush a hug, and there are now lovely cotton tops with three-quarter length sleeves that are elegant and fashionable. So our mid-drift has expanded a bit, perhaps because a few extra glasses of wine were necessary as we sorted out the world’s ills. When I last went into a lingerie store, I saw underwear with less material than my granddaughter’s socks, and she’s a toddler. Some of us can’t wear such things because they’d vanish into our body’s crevices, but more importantly, it’s uncomfortable. Using a large elastic band to hold back real estate it’s not designed to retain is tortuous for the elastic band and for us. High heels can be murderous on the feet. So too are a poorly fitted bra and underwear.
One of the most elegant pyjama/lounging fabrics for women our age is that perfect weight of cotton. These pj bottoms are more refined than yoga pants. Those aren’t forgiving, and they don’t pretend to be. They have a function, and they’re true to that. I want to feel lovely every day, and I don’t need to drop a ton of money to get there either. This is a Walmart request. Men’s medium white pyjama set, drawstring, please.
Middle-age gals need someone to design sexy, comfy lingerie for them. It needs to have great lines, solid colours, and lovely fabrics, and in their collection, they need to make boxy drawstring white pyjama bottoms. Keep flowers, birds and anything that belongs on a Hallmark card far away from my ass. There’s nothing attractive about using a pattern to show how big a landmass you’re carrying around. I’m not a globe. We’re talking business when you take the same real estate and thoughtfully envelope it in a shapely manner in a stunning solid navy blue or indigo.
Unless the wireless bras are comfy and have a lovely wide strap at the sides to capture some of the extra flesh that has brought us this far, then I’m not interested. As for the granny panties that seem to be at the other end of simple and white for women our age, are you kidding? We smoked weed in the sixties; some of us protested, we broke the glass ceiling, were the original fighters leading to the ‘Me Too’ movement and are a formidable kick-ass group of dynamic female energy. We deserve better than that. We’re middle-aged mavericks and mavens. Treat us as such. We’re wise, beautiful inside and out and kind. Let our lingerie reflect that. We know who we are, and that alone is extremely sexy. And don’t insult us by selling your goods seemingly designed for us but modelled on twenty-year-olds. That’s infuriating, insulting and unrelatable.
These pyjama bottoms I speak of are the perfect metaphor for who we are as women. They are crisp like our attitude, progressive like our style, light in ‘not sweating the small stuff,’ bright in our acquired wisdom, elegant in our awareness and spirit, inclusive in how we experience the world, versatile in our adaptability, comfortable in how we are with ourselves and white because our days of being Nik Wellanda have left the building.
Nice, Djanka! And so true. Sexy and senior is where it’s at. 👌🏽