R oundabout
Night Must Fall
By KATHARINE WHITEHORN
DESIGNING nightwear for women nowadays must be a lot of fun. With a public generally eased up to the idea of looking elegant at night whether anyone is there to notice or not, and a lot of new fabrics to play with, there is tremendous scope for inven- tion. In the past ten days we have seen a lot of different notions, both at the Nylon Fair and in private shows; but Ypes of nightwear actually being produced. The design of feminine nightwear centres on °Ile unsolved and largely undiscussed dilemma: rnightdresses for sleeping in or, if you see what ineao, not? Basically, there are five ways of w ways of up for the night. There is the all-holds- nvited glamour gown which is indecent and lacy yand clings to the figure. This sort is sold, all right, especially in Soho; but it understandably gets left out of the trade shows. There is the throw-away s,tYle, presumably started when Jean Harlow was itidering about in all those men's pyjamas in ne Thirties looking pathetic and overwhelmed `find defenceless. The descendant of those pyjamas --the Harlow New Gown, so to speak—is, oddly enough, the Baby Doll pyjamas, which are not egarments as such; they only came in when eb went out, and they hide everything else. These 'ere on s in quantity at Kayser Bondor, who :!4ye now started a version with a waist; I could have done without the exaggerated little-girl pouts and stuffed soft toys carried by models who have 'ell out of the nursery for some time now. ,There are the pyjama-game styles, more nauti- aLi.than naughty, the midnight version of jeans: c nnese Pyjamas from France, pirate pants in gingham checks from Kayser Bondor : some of these might even keep you warm. And then there \4,.e those u dowagers' laces which are sold, along table-runners, in austere shops in Bond Street, and seem expressly designed for waking s.Pin the middle of a country-house murder and airbag, `James, what is the meaning of this dis- ilirnce.). pt hot by far the commonest nightgown at the iT floating is the waltz-length nightdress, a loose, so-atIng thing that ends just below the knee; 11::letintes transparent, more often not. Sylphide ve a beauty in pale sea-green; Taylor Woods fr a 'shimmy-shortie' which is apparently made i:n1 butterflies' wings. These items are cer- ri ianttlyerpretty; how they rate on allure is another brass the night-designers ever get down to brass tacks in their high-level discussions I have ° idea; it is obviously a subject on which it is hard to conduct any scientifically controlled ti Pertrilents. But it is often suggested that attrac- t:11 io dress works on the principle of the imper- il etlY defended fortress. A woman is swathed to °°1' level—bier has a low d6colletage; or she is buttoned austerely to neck and wrist but has a slit skirt. Even a face that is made-up heavily except for the lips is based on the same idea. The long opaque nightdress topped with a revealing bit of lace fits in with this theory; or even a shapeless, opaque and apparently unrevealing housecoat that is mainly open down the front. One can assume that lace and frills would not be attractive to men as such; whether they act as a kind of surf breaking around the foundations of the fortress it is hard to say. But if they succeed in suggesting more than they reveal, as the best of them do, then they are on the right lines.
For the all-revealing nightdress has several dis- advantages. What it reveals is not always what the consumer had in mind. This is not so much because women's figures are bad, as because the conventional idea of a good figure changes: not one woman in ten really has the accepted ideal figure—and it would not be the same woman from one decade to the next even if she could keep it up. (Probably the Thirties was the best time for nightdresses: the ideal figure being neither the ironing-board of the Twenties or the Four Melon Formula of the Fifties.) In the daytime, bras and girdles make for conformity; but it is the essence of night-design that it makes the most of a woman without make-up or build-up—presumably what stops them indulging in flights of fancy dress.
And when all's said and done, half the time the nightdresses are not for saying 'Darling' in : they arc for saying 'Have you put the cat out?' or 'What time shall I set the alarm?' For most women, most of the time, revealing nightwear is simply an embarrassment. Maybe the perfect nightdress—which is both undemanding and attractive, has not yet been invented; but these nylon numbers do make a woman feel pretty and feminine and approachable, even if the old man with the binoculars across the street sees nothing.
For morale, this is important; the only shame is that so many women regard this boost as medicinal brandy rather than an everyday aperitif. A friend of mine bought herself -in a moment of extravagance a really frivolous nylon peignoir, and showed it to the-girls at the office.
.'0oh,' said the typist . wonderingly. :Are, you going into hospital?'
Previous page
