Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Women in Bedclothes

I can't help but notice the sleepwear certain women wear for their everyday attire here in Morocco. Of course there are as many elegantly and fashionably dressed women here as anywhere. And yet there quite a few who wear pajamas all day long, throwing a galabah on top of their pajamas when they want to go out out the house. Even with the galabah and headscarf on, they still look like they just never fully got dressed for the pajama bottoms peek out from under their galabah. Now I have no idea if these ladies wear these same clothes when they retire at night but I do know they wear the pajamas while working in the house and on those occasions when they venture outside the house. Invariably, those pj's are pretty girlish with patterned hearts, skating polar bears or childish kittens. These women are almost always wearing some kind of slipper as well, adding to the impression that they just never managed to get dressed that day. Sometimes they don't put a galabah on, they actually tie a bathrobe around their waist and wear it outside like a coat. The bathrobes are always a plush synthetic fleece and tend to be just as girly as the pajamas underneath; sky blue material with fluffy white clouds or a solid color in some pastel hue.

I have always known Moroccans to be eminently practical and at first this choice in clothing seemed to me to be just that; a sensible, economical and comfortable choice not unlike the tracksuits everyone wore everywhere in the '80's or the yoga wear of today. And yet something about it increasingly bothers me and it has nothing to do with aesthetics. Is it because the choice of sleepwear is so connected to being tied down at home whereas tracksuits and yoga wear are associated with activity outside the home? Is it the choice of patterns in the bedclothes that typically appeal to young girls yet end up being an unintentional parody of femininity and innocence? I'm not sure but it all seems kind of bothersome to me because even though no one is forcing these women to put on the pajamas and robes in the first place, I personally would like to be reassured these women see themselves as more than domestics. But that's just me and I could easily be guilty of reading too much into what seems to be an enduring fashion phenomenon here.

  

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