Evolution of Loungewear

Sometimes I wonder at what point our action verbs change to reflect current technology. For example, when will we stop saying 'pick up the phone' or 'I'm going to hang up ' since now we flip our cells on and off? No more handset and cradle, yet our collective conscious still faintly hears a click and a thunk, rather than a blip and another blip. I sometimes still hear a rotary dial, but only in far off dreams.

A tangent on that got me thinking about that seductive phrase used in so many old movies, "I'm just going to slip into something more comfortable." The siren utters this and then re-emerges clad is some amazing, Star Trek-inspired lounging apparatus, usually with the same amount of fabric and ornateness, or more, than the gown she discarded.

I got to wondering what was more comfortable about them. Then I considered the undergarments she must have taken off:


One ad announced the amazing bonus, "...and you can bend!"

The other fact about this foundational equipment is that it looks rather impenetrable for any poor gentleman trying to 'get to know her better' and all that.

What with modern fashions being so much less confining than what the girdled eras demanded--if we accurately represented what would be more comfortable than our jeans and t-shirts--when a woman utters that phrase now it should strike terror in any man's heart, because this is probably what she'd come back wearing:

Side note: Kind of a bummer we are now only left with exercise programs and celery sticks to get the firm, sleek look that women through the ages have used whalebone, rubber and elastic to achieve.