TIMESONLINE: Mothers wearing pyjamas on the school run prove that the codes that once governed how we got dressed in the morning have all but disappeared. But it is still disrespectful to make no effort, says our correspondent
Times2 is confused. We’re on the phone to Vogue magazine and Vogue magazine is telling us that the whole country is smartening up: “The ladylike look is back,” Vogue says. “Even jeans are sort of passé now.”
But what about pyjamas? Now Vogue is confused. Times2 explains that last week a headmaster publicly appealed to women who take their children to and from school while still dressed in nightwear to show some respect. “People don’t go to see a solicitor, bank manager or doctor dressed in pyjamas, so why do they think it’s OK to drop their children off at school dressed like that?” Joe McGuinness, the principal of St Matthew’s primary in Belfast, told his local paper.
And bear in mind that this latest sartorial bombshell comes on top of a lot of other things: on top of the revelation by the Lonely Planetguide to Great Britain that we are known the world over for our slovenliness; on top of the fact that even the Savoy has given in to the cult of comfort-dressing, which means that guests are now allowed to pad about in the legendary hotel’s foyer in flip-flops or shorts; on top of the fact that we’re on the brink of another record-breakingly hot summer – a summer that, because of global warming, may decide never to go away – and we all know what happens to the way people in Britain dress when the temperature skyrockets. Isn’t the pyjama plague just another sign that we have become a nation of irredeemable slobs? A casual affair (more) By Stephanie Marsh
Mark Alexander
