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I used to wear matching pajamas and the occasional gown. I think that it was partly thanks to my mom that I had cute lacy nightgowns or pants and a button-up shirt with a favorite cartoon character across the back. For the first twelve or thirteen years of my life, I went to bed with clothes that were decidedly sleepwear.

I remember one turning point in my nightwear quite distinctly. One of my friends gave me a pair of boxer shorts as a birthday present. First I had to decide whether she was sending me a subtle message about my weight by giving me shorts with pigs printed all over them. But once I decided that they were nothing more than cute decorative animals, I have to admit I was a bit confused by this new article of clothing. On some level I understood that she meant for me to sleep in them, but I wasn't entirely sure what to do because they didn't come with a shirt. All of my pajama shorts came with a shirt.

I looked through my closet and found a pinkish shirt that was starting to wear thin and decided that it would complement the pink pigs nicely. I've rarely slept in anything but an old t-shirt since. I don't always wear boxer shorts with the t-shirts; I've expanded my sleep wardrobe to include a few pairs of lounge/sleep pants. They have the casual comfort of boxer shorts while providing more leg coverage for colder weather. I have bought a few gowns since the switch, but I end up annoyed with them when they twist and ride up in the night. It's also much easier to sit around the house in your pajamas on a lazy day when your pajamas are made up of shorts or pants and a t-shirt. I don't feel nearly as undressed and thus lack the motivation to hop in the shower in a timely manner.

Maybe I was just too young to notice before that point, but I do feel like the trend toward women wearing boxer shorts to bed has been a more recent phenomenon. I wonder if younger women finally got tired of matching ensembles and frilly gowns? Or maybe they just needed another use for their old t-shirts. Although in looking around the sleepwear departments of clothing stores, it seems that women are just as likely to buy a t-shirt or tank top especially for sleeping in rather than just recycling something they already own. This overall casual sense of dress when sleeping was especially prevalent when I was in college, which is why I think of this trend as belonging to young women. I lived in a dorm with communal bathrooms, and I never saw anyone stroll into the bathroom in a carefully matched sleeping ensembles. Boxers, t-shirts and sleep pants were the order of the day. Sleep pants were especially useful for rolling out of bed and heading straight to class in some cases, although I was never brave enough to do that. I wonder if this is a trend that will stay with my generation, or if it's a larger shift in what people wear to bed. I suppose only time will tell.