Pants and Pyjamas
By: Alice Yang
Tags: Clothing, Socioeconomic Status, Fast Fashion, Capitalism, Materialism

Golden rays crawl through the blinds, permeating the room to seemingly remind me of my indecisiveness. I attempt again, for the fifth time now, to find something that’s appropriate — casual and cool, but not too over the top. Yet, the product of the past fifteen minutes standing face-to-face with my wardrobe is still the same: my pyjamas. Having lived in them for nearly a week (gross, I know) they’re like a second skin; a protective layer that I just can’t bring myself to remove.

To walk around the block, however, requires me to peel this layer off and change into something more ‘appropriate’; otherwise, I know I’ll be a magnet for side-eyes and supercilious glances.

Too often as I attempt to solve Gordian’s knot — choosing two pieces of fabric to wear — a manifold of factors must be accounted for. Will that skirt show too much as I climb up the hill to catch my bus? Have I dressed for the occasion?

More recently, the rise of social media has propagated this idealistic image predicated on a constant revamping of your wardrobe — only by keeping up to date with the latest trends are you deemed ‘fashionable’. I recall my fourteen-year-old self, who would wear the same pair of track pants she loved whenever she could, discarding every last bit of it — because when society tells you to deprecate something, you follow suit right? Wearing track pants was not stylish — yet they’ve lately become the largest trend — and it would be an absolute crime to wear something twice. Needless to say that if you have POSTED in an outfit, God forbid that it ever appears on the gram again.

The other day I came across an advertisement that really did catch my eye. It was a diamante mesh face mask, set at nearly $20AUD. I struggled to decipher how this product had even made it through to manufacturing — it’s a piece of fishnet material dotted with rhinestones, providing absolutely no coverage. You would think someone would notice the designer missed the point there. But what’s worse is that I knew the ‘mask’ was on the market because people would purchase it. Rather than a necessity to survival, face masks — inane or not — had just become another fad, falling victim to a society that snatches at any opportunity to capitalise.

From face masks to clothing, this capitalism spurs a materialistic mindset that precipitates a class stratification we aren’t even cognizant of. It eats us from the inside out — from exacerbating classist divides to driving industries that profit off people’s pains and insecurities. You receive ample likes if you’re dressed in Gucci from head to toe, yet a photo in your track pants struggles to reach even a quarter of that. And your ‘friends’ seem to suddenly adore you yet have never even met you. Before I can even open my mouth, the garments on my body already speak for me.

Don’t get me wrong: clothes are an integral part of our self-expression. They’re a silent language that can reflect our mood; how we’re vibing. I love a sleek trench coat when I’m feeling chic, or a leather jacket when I’m feeling badass. But when society tends to judge your worth and who you are by the garments on your body, that language is no longer a form of communication — it’s a termination.

Racing to catch the last limbs of light, I glance at myself again in the mirror with the outfit I have chosen. The crisp autumn breeze brushes against my cheeks as I step onto the street. My walk turns into a skip, and finally a run.

I run around the block in the pyjamas I’ve worn for a week.