“It is always better to be slightly underdressed.”—Coco Chanel

Greetings Dear Ones!

It’s HOT here at Hermit Hollow. In this damp heat, with menopausal hot-flashes strong enough to power the turbine of a small river boat up the Mississippi, I lose my starch faster than a young man’s collar at the prom. I live this far north for a reason! (As locals say, “If summer comes on the weekend, we usually have a picnic.”)(Thanks, Mac!) I am slumped on the couch wearing stale running clothes that have been worn running, then into the local river to cool off, then running again, then left out in the rain over night. It’s like when I was ten years old and lived an entire summer in the same swimsuit until it basically rotted off my body by the time school started in September. Languidly, I ask a fellow hermit what a good blog topic might be for the week—since my brain has melted, along with the cheese that was left out on the counter since lunchtime. She pauses, carefully considers my recumbent form—draped in all its vanity and glamour—makes a gesture towards my “ensemble” and asks “how did this come to be considered “clothing?”

“You mean my In-active wear?”

She snorts. “Yes.” Apart from the occasional plod or swim, this “outfit” is mostly worn for languishing in oppressive heat and humidity. I begin to wonder—is it Sportswear if I play no sports? Active wear if I am inactive? Athleisure—for those masquerading as athletic while we build the muscles of a couch potato? (My couch potato is Baked.) As far as I know, this “clothing” did not exist when I was a child—though George Washington was photographed trying to ford that river in skin-tight trousers that very much resemble something Lululemon might charge a lycra-clad arm and a leg for…

With the effort it might take others to lift bowling balls, my fingers begin their laborious hike of the keyboard in search of answers. My fashion history books are all in the shop, which seems a million miles too far away for a car whose air-conditioner is malfunctioning.

Apparently, this “fashion” has only been around for about twenty-seven years. Lorna Jane Clarkson is credited with making these human sausage skins and calling them “Active Wear” (most of the “activity” being getting them on). The fabric itself has been around since 1958, when a scientist from DuPont named Joseph Shivers invented better clothing through chemistry with the introduction of Spandex fibers, which were then manufactured into Lycra cloth.

Then Yoga became trendy. Once the physical, mental, and spiritual discipline of fifth-century Hindu elite aesthetes, yoga is now responsible for fashions one finds everywhere from supermarkets to boardrooms. Occasionally, we even wear it to lie down on mats, breathe ponderously, and lift seriously heavy things like our own arms and legs, to enhance our physical and emotional well-being.

I do a modified version I like to call “Seamstress Yoga,” which involves only one pose: I lie flat on the floor and think about all the work I am not getting done. I wait there until I a. fall asleep, b. smell something burning, c. hear someone yelling, barking, or baah-ing. It’s very strenuous. Oh sure, my aim is to participate in a “theistic philosophy teaching the suppression of all activity of body, mind, and will in order that my Self may realize its distinction from them and attain liberation.” (Merriam Webster) But instead of attaining liberation, I pretty much lie there and mentally cook, write, or sew and listen to Prudence fretting about the To-do list before I get up, grab the scissors, and start running. (Yoga makes me extremely productive!) As soon as I master it, I will proclaim myself a Guru, involve some my cuter farm animals, and charge big bucks for it as a side hustle to subsidize my cloth addiction.

This week, as I was lying on the floor “practicing,” I spotted some cloth peeking out of a tub under my cutting table. Suddenly, I couldn’t stop thinking about making a pair of pajama bottoms out of that India Print cotton. They were quick and easy so I whipped them up while I was simultaneously on a phone call with a car insurance salesman, hitting “mute” when I had to run the serger. (The insurance guy never suspected a thing.) They might come in useful if I ever decide to cut myself out of these running pants!

Wouldn’t you know it? Pajamas are the ultimate and original in leisure wear? Pajama pants in block print India cotton are straight out of the seventeenth century. “How many times do I have to tell you,” carps Prudence, “that there is truly nothing new under the sun? Read your history people! Yoga pants and jogging bottoms (ugh, what a name!) are nothing more than medieval hose in less sea-worthy fabric. And Pajama bottoms are, well, PAJAMAS.”

Pajamas, it turns out, have been around since the Ottoman Empire. The name comes from Hindi and means “leg clothing”—“pae jama.” Nicknamed PJ’s, pajamas were traditionally loose drawers or trousers tied at the waist with a drawstring or cord, and they were worn by both sexes in India, Iran, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, usually with a loose, belted tunic on top. Though the name is Hindi, such a style of dress is known all throughout the Middle and Far East. As early as the seventeenth century, European sailors, traders, and merchants were bringing back pajamas and using them as exotic loungewear to signify wealth, status, and worldly knowledge. (And some people think Oprah started all that!)

They weren’t really known in the west as sleepwear until the 1870’s, when British colonials introduced them as an alternative to nightshirts. Before then, everyone—men and women alike, slept in some version of a night gown—either a shift or a long shirt. Like myself, people then weren’t in the habit of changing their clothes that often during a plague. They wore the same under garments next to their skin for many days, even weeks. (Prudence shudders, rolls her eyes, and wonders how the species survives…)When they woke up in the morning, they just added layers and posies of dried herbs to cut the um, “fragrance.”

In the West, Pajamas, though used by all genders in the Middle and Far East, were only worn by men until the 1920’s, when Coco Channel stunned the world with her “Beach Pajamas.” One languorous stroll along the water at the Riviera resort town of Juan-les-Pins, and suddenly, fashionable ladies donned beach pajamas all along the world’s most stylish coast. Formerly, they were accustomed to wearing woolen swimsuits that buttoned at the neck and wrists. The swishy palazzo-like pants and bare-backed jumpsuit styles shocked the public in the interwar years. What made these so scandalous was that women were appropriating “male” sleepwear and wearing it in public! (Prudence still thinks pajamas should NOT be seen in public, certainly not in the frozen food section…) It was kind of the 1920’s equivalent of modern college co-eds running about campus dressed in men’s boxer shorts.

Well, if the survivors of the horrific first world war from 1914-1918 were further traumatized by bobbed haircuts, flapper dresses and ladies wearing pajamas on the beach, what must they have thought after another world war had ended and 1946 saw women roaming the beaches in bikinis! Ladies, who had been making themselves more comfortable in their leisure clothing since 1910, had transitioned all the way from Edwardian corsetry and tight skirts to “relaxed clothing in order to play sports.” (By the 1960’s if women relaxed any more, they would have to run naked, which it seems, some of them even did.)

I for one cannot blame those 1920’s women for seeking their freedoms, as looser fitting, boxy styles with drop waists in silks and crepes paved the way for the relaxed wide leg trousers that followed. Later, in the 1960’s and 70’s, beach pajamas made a resurgence, this time known as “palazzos.” With modern concerns about sun protection from UV rays, we may see yet another rendition of beach pajamas, perhaps even beach parkas. With more folks working from home, we may even have “Business Pajamas.”

Prudence and I spend a lot of our time listening to books on tape or watching historical documentaries as we work. Lately, I’ve returned to my fascination with the era of Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I. (This has resulted in Prudence developing serious concerns about cod-pieces. She is dreading the day they ever reappear in style. Things like codpieces and 1980’s-style shoulder pads should only ever know a single incarnation.) We see the over-arching patterns (forgive the pun) of humanity’s quest for fashion and comfort. It’s a balancing act involving the practicalities of fiber care and personal taste. Fashion has been called a “train” but really, through the eyes of history, it is more of a Merry-Go-Round. Silhouettes are alternately constrained and set free; waistlines rise or swell like tides. Usually, the fashion trends are intimately connected with both the scientific discoveries and the politics of their day.

Home has always been where we could relax, with less formality, in private. I’m pretty certain that Eve had a version of more comfy fig leaves for kicking about the cave. The eighteenth-century Banyan evolved into my granny’s 1950’s “house dress,” which one can still order from the Vermont Country Store, just up the road a stretch from Hermit Hollow, for those wishing to transform instantly from maiden to matron in three yards or more of pastel gingham with a rick-rack trim. This is the 1950’s version of “sweats”—only more versatile: In times of deprivation, one could even lie down in such garb and become the family picnic table.

Outwardly, we are changing our fashions continually to embrace our “new normals” as we adopt novel activities—women playing tennis in 1910 required a new “outfit,” as did those attempting to smash small white balls with something called a niblick (a.k.a. “golf”). Now, to go grocery shopping, one must wear “facial fashion.” As we turn the leaf on a new chapter of modern history that embraces a more inclusive definition of love — both culturally and, at last, politically — I hope that our minds and hearts are as capable of expanding as our clothing. I think about the relaxation of fashion and the relaxation of our rigid gender norms and relaxation of what true and proper love is supposed to look like. We are definitely adept at making ourselves more comfortable. Isn’t it time we made others feel that way too?

On Saturday, July 4th, my beloved country will be celebrating its many rights and privileges and commemorating the rejection of a tyrannical foreign power that conquered the globe in its imperial quest for pajamas. On this day in 1776, our citizens claimed their rights to Life, Liberty, and haircuts at gunpoint, then went nuts with fireworks, parades and picnics—traditions that are pretty much continuous to this very day.

Freedom, Safety and Comfort are eternally in a dance with each other as Society decides not only the limits of its fashions but its politics. To a certain extent, they are dependent upon the unique choices of individuals. But individuals can be influenced by the collective—by trends. The Founders both deeply valued majority rule yet feared mobs. Freedom, like Yoga—is not a “thing” but a process, an act of Balance; being able to access “repose” while taking a strong position takes unbelievable strength and flexibility. We need to keep practicing—keep bending, stretching, reaching to grow strong.

While Prudence equates the devolution of our clothing with the erosion of our moral standards, I certainly do not. I recognize that I may have a ways to go in updating a look that is simultaneously flattering, comfortable, considerate of others, and environmentally sustainable. I’m willing to learn. In my medieval leisure wear—I’m ready to start a new (old) trend here at the Hollow. But first…

I’m going to need some help getting out of these running pants!

Celebrate your Freedoms, My Darlings! Make sure others share them too. And Keep up your Good Work!

With Sew Much Love,

Nancy