STRIPPED: FREAK IN THE SHEETS
Picture by Maddy Cox
After a long day of walking up and down the quad, there is no greater feeling than taking off your salt-stained clothes and hopping into your sheets. Waiting for you lies a t-shirt that borders on comical and offensive—a shirt a little too bold to wear casually. Haunted by your mothers judgement, you sport this shirt only to bed where you can wear it proudly.
You don't find the sleep shirt; the sleep shirt finds you.
According to Heddels, a news publication dedicated to sustainable shopping practices, t-shirts have been around since the 1800. They resulted from the evolution of men’s underwear. English factory workers took their long johns or long underwear and cut off the bottom half. By the 1900, companies started selling the first modern t-shirts. The graphic tee followed soon after, originating during World War II when soldiers engaged creatively with their shirts, applying paint and stencil to create their own unique designs. When they returned from war, their creations catalyzed a movement that would outlast even themselves.
Sleep shirts give graphic tees a new life and purpose. Relegating a well-loved tee to sleep shirt status limits the amount of clothes that end up in landfills along with the unnecessary consumption of pajamas produced through fast fashion. Brands like Victoria’s Secret not only use synthetic materials for their jammies, but they churn out products at a rapid pace, contributing to the trend of poor and environmentally damaging labor practices.
Pricing becomes a factor too. Sets from Kim Kardashian’s pajama and loungewear brand Skims can cost well over $100. Somebody tell Kim that a simple tee will suffice.
Your bed is supposed to be the one place where you don't feel restricted. The sleep shirt serves that purpose.
“I like a nice set here and there, but I think something about a sleep shirt is very comforting,” Syracuse University Freshman Alex Raymond said.
Her sleep shirt was a gift from her mother. She said its loose fit allows her to feel free as she heads off to bed.
In a sense, sleep shirts are intimate, similar to lingerie. They’re not for the public eye–they’re a conversation between you and the sheets. It’s truly a sacred experience.
Your shirt can have a multitude of past lives hiding right under your nose. Maybe it’s a shirt you won at a carnival, a shirt you bought off the side of the road or even your grandma's high school gym uniform. Whatever it may be, the sleep shirt is a symbol of evolution. Your sleep shirt might physically change as it gets worn and reworn, but its meaning actively changes too. What the shirt meant to the last owner isn't likely to coincide with how you feel about it.
SU freshman Eden Selassie finds a certain freedom in her favorite sleep shirt, a tee that shows a wolf with smoke coming out of its eyes sitting on top of an arrowhead in the forest.
“When you’re going to bed, the performance is done. You're off the stage. It's fun to wear clothes just to wear clothes and not have to look like anything,” Selassie said.
In the end, the sleep shirt will continue to live on. Tonight as you get ready for bed, slap on that disgustingly hilarious, ill-fitting t-shirt. Forget about looking put-together or sexy. It’s nobody’s business.