Pajama Game
Posted by left_blank on 09-22-2005
Somewhere in the bottom of a drawer at my parents’ house, where I keep all the embarrassing mementos of my childhood, there is a photo of me leaning against the windows of my high school Spanish classroom wearing a pair of jeans and my boyfriend’s pajama top. It was a grandpa-like top, white flannel with a blue diamond pattern and wide white plastic buttons. I wore it almost every day over my alt rock concert t-shirts, and the aforementioned boyfriend sometimes wore the bottoms. All our friends (we called ourselves skaters or freaks) featured a similar look in their daily wardrobes.
It seems that the trend is back. The New York Times, reg. required, and others are running an Associated Press article that says kids as young as eleven are wearing their Snoopy pajama bottoms to school, and the schools are starting to take notice. There’s talk of banning pajama wearing at school, with officials saying that the kids look like “vagrants.” Retailers like Old Navy and Target are leading the charge, with updated tops and bottoms featuring retro logos and cartoon characters. And this is fashion on the cheap – a pair of funky bottoms at Old Navy runs about $15 – quite a departure from the $135 Seven jeans I see all over the malls.
One of the moms in the Times article rightly points out that at least pajamas are covering more of her daughter’s body than her normal clothes, which I think is a great point. I’ll take baggy PJ pants and fuzzy slippers over teens in low-rise jeans and stiletto heels any day.
Categorized under: Youth Marketing
September 22nd, 2005 at 8:33 am
The school behavior policy plus the numerous school rules advisories we were sent home upon enrolling in (public) middle school here in Florida stated no pajamas were permitted. I believe it was also mentioned in the younger children’s elementary school rules. Good thing that wasn’t the case for preschool and my son when he started elementary school…he would have not been at school due to morning refusal to get dressed. He prefers a more leisurely morning and it took going to school a couple of times in jammies to get the point across that school attendance wasn’t optional.
September 22nd, 2005 at 10:50 am
They did the pj bottoms thing all last year here in S. Cal…slippers too! I see both sides.. if you’re thinking of school as your child’s *job* ..they should dress nicely. If you’re thinking that the important part of going to school is getting a good education…who *cares* what they wear! And the other mom is right.. at least they’re *covered*!