The Seven Ages of Sleepwear

Never mind pie charts, spread sheets and polls, if social commentators really wanted to build up a picture of the stages of a woman's life, they'd take a good look at the sleepwear issue. The journey from cradle to grave finds its perfect metaphor in the progression from the innocence that is a Boyzone nightie through to the cynical comfort of a pair of high-necked thermal pyjamas.

You may not know it but your choice of night attire says an awful lot about your status (marital or otherwise), about your state of mind and about the state of the Asian economy. OK, that might be pushing it, but what you wear to bed can not be underestimated as a social signifier.

At the start of the cycle is the Boyzone/ Spice Girls nightshirt option, probably the first bed garment that you'll actually chose for yourself and definitely the most co-ordinated phase in your sleepwear career as what you wear in bed will match your posters, duvet, magazines and dreams. It is also the last time you'll have the integrity to wear a technicolour photo of the man of your dreams emblazoned across your chest. Next comes the baggy T-shirt-in-bed era which is usually accompanied by sulks, stomps and unearthly silences. Not that the sulks et al are natural bedfellows with baggy T-shirts, but because baggy T-shirts are the number one choice of sleepwear for the average teenager. You'll know when this rather scary phase has arrived when you hear something along the lines of "No I'm not wearing those poxy pyjamas. Nobody wears pyjamas anymore. And anyway, they're bad for you."

This last statement has no basis in fact, of course, but then the baggy T-shirt era is not really about fact. It's about rebelling against what your mother thinks you should wear in bed by conforming with what all your peers wear in bed. The move from baggy T-shirt to sexy night dress usually comes when you reach your 20s and, oddly enough, usually coincides with the move out of the parental home. Everything from magazines to movies to your horoscope is telling you that there just might be an occasion when it would be a good idea not to wear a greying T-shirt to bed. They will also tell you that you just never know when that occasion might be, so you'd better wear a gorgeous piece of nothingness all the time. Just in case, like.

Of course there are usually vast tracts of time when there is nobody to admire the lovely lacy number but your own good self and you know it well enough already because you bloody bought the thing. As inevitably as night follows day, the wearing of the sexy night-dress becomes extinct. This is either because the darn thing itches constantly and really you might as well return to the greying T-shirt option, or else it is because the darn thing comes off quick enough anyway as to not matter a hoot.

This is when you enter the "nothing but a dab of perfume behind each ear" phase and very enjoyable it is too. It even cuts down on the laundry. Then it starts to get a bit nippy and perhaps you start to feel a little silly strutting around in nothing but good intentions. Still, it's a little too early to abandon romance altogether, and that's when you start to purloin the belongings of your other half.

While boxer shorts were never a good idea for women in the day time (unless you really like a VPL under tight dresses), they come into their own after dark, particularly when teamed up with an old shirt. It's a look inspired almost entirely by American films starring Meg Ryan/Julia Roberts/Michelle Pfeiffer who all look better wearing a Brooks Brothers shirt and a pair of Hanes than they ever do when decked head-to-toe in designer gear. Of course, most normal women never quite master the knack of having perfectly styled hair and make-up at 8 a.m. in the morning but, hey, that's a minor detail.

And when Other Half gets sick and tired of your kleptomania it's a sign that you're approaching the next phase: the glamorous pyjama epoch. This particularly strident stage in your nightwear career is heralded by marvellous life-affirming thoughts such as "Oooh, they look warm" and "Pyjamas! Silk ones! Well if I'm old enough to be on a PTA committee, I think I'm old enough to invest in silk pyjamas." Slippery silk, fresh linen, delicious brushed tartan cotton - once you've made the decision to do the pyjama/long nightie thing, the possibilities are endless.

The only problem is that once you've reached this stage it's completely irreversible.

Suddenly comfort is the only factor when it comes to selecting sleepwear. Woollen socks with holes in the toes start creeping in to your repertoire. Nice Marks & Spencer flannel night-gowns suddenly become objects of desire rather than derision. The Damart catalogue beckons.

Before you know it you've reached the final stage in the sleepwear cycle: thermal pyjamas, a dressing gown, slippers and maybe even a shawl in case you get a chill while you're eating your milk and biscuits in the middle of the night. Glamorous it ain't but really, that's no longer an issue. Managing to find a pair of tights without holes and a cardigan with both elbows is an issue; looking good when you're snuggled under your duvet is not. So that's it, you've run the gamut of the sleepwear options, you've sampled the emotional highs and lows of each, you know those pyjama epiphanies - now tell me there isn't more to night dressing than meets the eye?