In college, I was guilty of high style crimes. I’d regularly throw a cardigan over men’s pajamas and scurry off to history class looking like I was about to sit down to a cup of chicken noodle soup at one of Providence’s finest soup kitchens. (Hey, it was the late ’90s, and Karl Lagerfeld wasn’t exactly roaming our hallowed campus). While I don’t like to revisit that dark period, I felt vindicated this past New York Fashion Week, when it seemed like every showgoer had taken pajamas out of the bedroom and passed them off as daywear — mostly in the form of silk printed pants.
Long considered the daytime garb of choice for senile mobsters and Hugh Hefner, PJs out of the bedroom are now having a moment.
PHOTOS: SLEEPWEAR ON THE STREET
French fashion house Celine showed a striped-set collection to great fanfare (it’ll be available in December), and Tommy Hilfiger’s silky PJs sold out almost immediately when they hit stores this fall. In August, designer Rachel Roy rocked a full pajama look when she hit the red carpet in a piped pair with Manolo heels.
I thought the look was fantastic, but my colleagues weren’t convinced. They challenged me to wear a full set of jammies all day. Gladly!
I got my hands on the wildly popular palm-printed navy set that Alexa Chung designed for Madewell. I paired the $400 ensemble with oxford wedges, threw on a statement necklace and headed to work in a cab wearing the most comfortable outfit known to woman.
My initially skeptical editor was shocked. “You actually look stylish!” she said.
My experiment might have started off successfully, but I was curious to see what the general public would make of my pajama game. I left the office and headed up Fifth Avenue. “You definitely caught my eye, but they’re just not really for me. No way,” declared Vanessa Crane, a 35-year-old flight attendant from London. Her pal Alison Snutch, on the other hand, was ready for a jammy jam. “I actually quite like them with some accessories. I like [being] a bit over the top,” said Snutch, clearly a woman of great taste and breeding.
As I walked around Midtown, I was the object of a collective side-eye from nearly everyone in the staid business crowd. “You’re still here? I saw you earlier,” one random blonde yelled as she strode past me on Sixth Avenue during rush hour. “I remembered you from your outfit.” When I asked if she liked it, the woman didn’t even make a polite attempt to mask her laughter. “Yeah, it’s umm . . . nice.” (Note: she was not of great taste and breeding.)
The get-up was entirely lost on a dude in gym clothes next to me in line for an afternoon coffee. “If you were waking up in my apartment with those, I might really like them,” he cracked.
Surprisingly, the biggest fan was Darren Greenblatt, owner of Donna Bell’s Bake Shop in Hell’s Kitchen.
“Oh, Tommy [Hilfiger] did those for fall, and Celine has the striped ones, too. And remember, Dolce & Gabbana also did them,” the baker rattled off like some sort of style savant. Upon further questioning, he explained he had recently left a career in fashion to start his bakery.
That evening, when I decided to grab a well-deserved glass of red wine at Papillon, an East 54th Street haunt popular with bankers in blue shirts, the real fun started. I caught a scrum of men checking me out.
I was feeling pretty good, until I saw one mouth to his buddy, “Yo, that chick is wearing freaking pajamas.”
“You’re so funny. You wore pajamas to a bar!” exclaimed another guy in disbelief. He refused to believe I genuinely liked my outfit choice.
Like most things in fashion, this look might take some time to trickle down to the masses. Me, I’ll definitely wear it again, and I’ll mix it up with pants and a fitted thin sweater or denim shirt. But, like I said, those of rarefied taste get it right away.
After all, when I tried to walk into the ‘21’ Club with a friend in jeans, the longtime host tasked with enforcing the stringent dress code wouldn’t let him pass go. “He can’t come in,” he said motioning to my denim-clad friend. But “you, miss, are most welcome to join us,” he said.
Talk about a sleeper hit.
kirsten.fleming@nypost.com