Greetings, and welcome to WTF Wednesday. In this week’s random internet browsing, I have discovered things that LOOK like pajamas, but I’m afraid they’re really intended for wearing outside the house. I don’t mean for just that quick convenience store run when it’s late-night or early morning and you just need some smokes and perhaps a Hostess baked good for breakfast. I mean taken seriously as fashion choices.

In some respects, this echoes the “Hostess Pajamas” trend of the 70’s. However, HOSTESS pajamas make sense. If I’m in my house, I’m not wearing outside clothes most of the time. Love me, love my loungewear. But no. These aren’t even for pretending to be fancy for guests. These are meant to be worn as regular parts of your wardrobe.

In an attempt at fairness, I will not start with the selections from the Store That is Dead to Me. Instead, I will start with Torrid, from whom I purchase a large part of my wardrobe. This year’s “Runway Collection” (it’s cool that they do a runway show, but most of the stuff that they feature is just ugh. Except these jeans are actually pretty cute) featured a lot of lacy and jeweled embellishments.  But one of the feature pieces is a “kimono.”

I believe the right word is “bathrobe.”

And not a bathrobe in which you can sit around and drink coffee and surf the net, either.  No, this monstrosity is dry clean only.  There’s another choice, too, in case you don’t like blush pink:  gray embroidered satin.  At least this one is machine washable, so theoretically you could lounge about feeling fancy in this without incurring a bill:

However, this trend has made it to a number of retailers.  Next on the list is ASOS Curve.  ASOS is weird.  They have a lot of things that are actually pretty cute.  My favorite turtlenecks and leggings were purchased there; they have smock and swing dresses that are comfortable but still look like you’re making an attempt to wear nice clothes to work, that’s where I’ve found most of my flowered hippie jeans and pajamas with things like sharks and robots.  But they also have a selection of “trendy” items, and most of those are definite WTF-ery:

Even MC Hammer shouldn’t touch this.

Lest you feel like I am leaving anyone out, this also comes in petite, regular, and tall sizes.  I mean, we should all have the opportunity to look like rap star rejects.

Sadly, Universal Standard has also jumped (pun intended) on this bandwagon.  And in a truly gross color.  NO ONE LOOKS GOOD IN THIS COLOR.  This model is gorgeous and can probably pull off almost anything, but even she needs a great deal of red lipstick in order to attempt this.

However, these onesies are but the tip of the ugly iceberg.

You too can look like you forgot to get all the way dressed.

And again, I don’t want to neglect those of you who do not wear plus sizes.  The options for regular sizes are many and varied:

But now we get to the mother lode:  an entire COLLECTION from The Store That is Dead to Me that is called “Night by Day.”
To me, this should be called Does Hugh Hefner know you raid his wardrobe?

Seriously.

It looks like a bathrobe over pajama pants.

What I find the most ironic about this “pajama dressing” trend is that sometimes, finding ACTUAL pajamas is a pain in the ass.  When I was doing all sorts of internet searches before my back surgery (mostly about what could go horribly wrong), one of the message boards suggested wearing satiny pajama pants because it would make getting in and out of bed/chairs easier.  You can’t really twist or bend for several weeks, so this was a good tip.  But when I went looking, it was so difficult to find anything.  It also suggested getting a long terrycloth robe to use after your showers, since bending to dry off would be difficult.  The robe wasn’t as hard, although finding a long robe is almost impossible. (I have been looking for a full-length bathrobe for literally years to replace one that is absolutely gross, but I haven’t found one.  They’re all mid-calf at the longest.  I’ve seen a few of those horrible zip-front ones in nasty fabric, but I want a wrap one in something soft, like flannel or french terry or even just plain woven cotton.  Nope.  Unless you get something custom made, women’s robes are largely the kind that barely cover your ass or maybe knee-length.  You know, sometimes we would rather be cozy than sexy.)

I do know I’m not going to feel bad about wearing pajama pants to the convenience store in the future.