Pajama Day
There are two ways I can describe this outfit. The first is as follows:
A cozy winter combo, made up of a thrifted poncho ($7.99), a thrifted vintage shirt-dress ($5.99), a thrifted Ralph Lauren Belt ($0.99), and finished with a thrifted Tony Poretti purse($9.99).
The second, more true-to-reality description goes something like this:
The absolute closest thing to wearing pajamas in the daytime, while still allowing for a modicum of dignity.
Straight-up, you guys. I have solved one of life’s great challenges: Getting dressed like you didn’t actually get dressed. I’d like to say I solved this quest by way of happy accident, but that would be a lie. When I dress for laziness, I do it with intent.
For starters, this dress: I thrifted it in December, and everything I thrifted that month HAD TO be Christmas-y. What’s Christmasy about a striped shirt dress? I thought it looked just like Scrooge’s night shirt (hey, sometimes I thrift for quality, and sometimes I thrift for things that look like the pajamas of beloved fictional characters). You guys are lucky I wasn’t pressed for content in December, because otherwise I would have blogged this dress much earlier, under the title “A Dickens of a Christmas!”. The poncho was thrifted only a few weeks ago, and as soon as I saw it, I thought “why the heck don’t I have one of these? It’s a snuggy for grown-ups!” (…and we all know I already have an actual snuggy).
When it came time to pair my big red blanket with something (because, let’s be honest, that’s all ponchos really are), putting it with the item that is essentially a men’s night shirt made perfect sense. And here it is, in all it’s pajama-like glory.
I’ve since worn this combination a few times over, even wearing it to work (with black tights instead of nylons – Scrooge likes his nightshirts a bit on the short side). And I can tell you, it’s quite freeing. The only other time I’ve experienced something similar would be the actual Pajama Day in grade school. Although, upon reflection, those days were always a little bizarre. While the “pajamas at school” thing sounded awesome, seeing everyone else in their Ninja Turtle onesies was actually very uncomfortable. Suddenly, the whole class was put on this strangely-vulnerable level with one another. Just weird, really. No one needed to see my Bullwinkle pajamas but me. So, perhaps faux-pajamas really are the best solution.
I do have to hand it to my grade school for throwing a good variety of school theme days, though. In edition to Pajama Day, we also had a Hawaiian Day, a Play Day, a Winter Crafts Day, a Mexican Fiesta Day, multiple Pizza and Hot Dog Days, and, in Grade Six, a Medieval Times Day. Half the class got to dress as Royalty (myself included), and the other half as servants. This was hilarious because the teacher actually made the servants do all the dishes. So, we didn’t so much as learn much about the Middle Ages, but rather that classism was an alright deal if you were on the winning side. I have a feeling that wasn’t what Ms. J. intended.
The other thing I remember from that day is that I busted out a giant hot-pink 80s prom dress, from the Salvation Army, and felt positively regal. I may have moved from Bullwinkle to blue stripes, but some things never change.