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If you’re reading this while working from home—which many people are, as a precaution against the spread of COVID-19—you might be doing so in sweatpants. The pandemic brings with it a moment of emotional austerity, and it can be easy to think that getting dressed is a pointless or even irresponsible expression of decadence, like Roman patricians indulging in sprawling banquets as the empire crumbles, or Sarah Palin appearing on The Masked Singer. You might feel so low that the desire to put on an outfit, or even “look presentable,” has disappeared completely.
Perhaps you find yourself wearing the oldest (and/or dirtiest) basketball shorts and T-shirt you own. Perhaps you find yourself never getting dressed at all, wearing the same boxers and tee as you move seamlessly between lying in bed and sitting in bed.
But despite all your instincts: you must not do this. You need to get dressed. More than that: you can even get some fits off.
Social-isolation policies will inevitably lead to a sense of, well, social isolation. On Thursday morning, Vox reported that the virus is likely to lead not only to an economic recession, but a kind of social recession as well. (Even Ralph Waldo Emerson warned people about loneliness!) For the past three years, the pervasive global and national turmoil has been mitigated by meaningful distractions—seeing films, visiting friends, going to readings, throwing parties, taking in museum shows—but it appears that for the foreseeable future, none of those things are an option for relief. So whatever dignity or sense of small purpose you can provide for yourself, you must. And the best way to do that might be through clothing.
You don’t necessarily need to spend hours getting dressed—that would be a little too Blanche DuBois digging through her trunks at the end of Streetcar Named Desire—although undoubtedly cooped-up clotheshorses can find dressing up with no place to go a kind of meditative relief. Pre-pandemic, many people were already getting dressed for the ‘gram and for the ‘gram only—perhaps it’s time to join their ranks! The mysterious Instagram user Vanilla Jellaba deleted her account last year, but her wild and baroque layering of Margiela and Comme des Garcons was a thrill that existed solely for an online audience, never to be taken out on the street. Less experimental but no less joyful is Jan Roxin, a Berlin-based business professor (and Balenciaga model!) who shares photos of his outfits everyday, from his cartoon track suit to his Matisse-inspired button-up, which he posed in next to his actual Matisse. (Your artwork as the new Instagram flex? We’ll take it!) On my own Instagram stories, the fit pic is already congealing into something like a small act of defiance, an expression of elegance in a moment of crisis.
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Still, not everyone will find this kind of exuberance a balm. So at the minimum, you should get up, take a shower (or a bath, because why not get Phantom Thread with it?!), and change into something you didn’t sleep in. The more “together” it is, the better—although that doesn’t necessarily mean your softest business casuals. Even changing from one lounging fit to another will improve your mood, or at least keep you from feeling truly horrible. There is perhaps no nicer small domestic wonder than the matching sweatsuit or pajama set, intended not for the outer world but for your own personal pleasure. (The founder of the great French shirtmaker Charvet, which also produces pajamas, talks about pajamas as the ultimate kind of hedonism: an act of total dedication to personal pleasure.) It is essential in times like these to maintain a certain level of self-respect and dignity.
A pair of house shoes will also make you feel like something is going on beyond dialing into conference calls as you make another smoothie. They run the gamut: simple pleasure from the Vermont Country Store, wacky gear from Suicoke, true luxury from Charvet. You may think you have chosen a barefoot life, but in fact many of us have simply accepted it as the default state of not bringing dirt and other outside shoe detritus into the house. House shoes are a necessity for the man who prizes life in the domicile—which is all of us now!
Now that our interactions with the outer world seem poised to be put on hold, getting dressed takes on a kind of necessary transformative power. Think of it as a ritual that marks a transition between what you wore to bed and what you wore to sit on the couch. Right now, I’m wearing a pair of gingham Muji pajamas, gold Charvet slippers, and a robe I bought at the gift shop at Princess Diana’s former palace. Am I debating whether to buy the Bode sleeping cap or this more “traditional” one from Peter Christian? YES. You could be just like me—or you could reach for the stars, and become the next Vanilla Jellaba. Your closet is your oyster.
