What I'm Wearing At Home

As someone who wears blazers on airplanes and nightgowns over pants to bed (Exhibit A below), what I’m about to share today probably won’t surprise you. While I’ve spent the past few years rebuilding my wardrobe and figuring out what makes me feel my best when I get dressed every morning, lately I’ve been thinking more about what I put on at the end of the day.

I’m sure this is fairly universal, but when I get home at 6pm, I immediately change into an old t-shirt and pajama pants because I don’t want to get my “nice clothes” splattered on while cooking dinner, etc. But as I shared in this post—which is most certainly the unofficial Part I to today’s newsletter—I’ve been zooming out more, thinking about what I really want and how I want to see myself. And to be completely honest...I want to be fancy.

Not fancy in a pearls-and-heels-to-cook-dinner kind of way, but in an old-school, have a little decorum kind of way. I want to feel put-together even when I’m not going anywhere. I want my kids to remember me as someone who dressed well and took care of herself, even—or maybe especially—at home.

So I’ve made a small swap. When I get home, I still change into black pants, but instead of a t-shirt, I put on my favorite white button-up. And I’m SO into it.

It’s so comfortable, and I feel like “me.” And now I can say, “I wear blazers on airplanes, nightgowns over pants to bed, and I lounge around my house in a white button-up.” Maybe I should have named this post POV 24/7.

Here’s the full routine, if you’re curious:

• Get home at the end of the day

• Change into a shirt1 and black pants and pull my hair back

• Cook dinner, hang out, put kids to bed, etc.

• Shower

• Hotel robe and skincare

• Pajamas (this over these pants is my favorite move)

• Bed!

I hope this goes without saying, but I am not writing this to be prescriptive. I don’t think everyone should run out and buy a button-up to wear for watching TV on the sofa (although if you do, please let me know). In fact, I would argue that what you wear at home is the most personal part of your wardrobe, and you should aim to be 100% comfortable. But now that I’ve experienced how nice it is to feel like myself in my loungewear and pajamas, I just want to throw it out there in case you need a proverbial permission slip: prioritizing how you feel at home is important, and it can be the result of tiny shifts over time. I stole a shirt from my own closet and it was an immediate upgrade. We are a creative bunch here and we don’t have to stick with anything we don’t like. New life motto :)

Thank you for reading :) It was a short and sweet post today, but something I’ve been thinking a lot about. Would love to chat in the comments and hear your thoughts!

I’ll be back next week with a week of outfits, including our three-day family trip to the Catskills!

-Emily

please note - some links do create affiliate revenue for me, at no extra cost to you! thank you for your support!

P.S. Since today’s post is centered around a cotton poplin shirt, I wanted to share these screenshots I took recently from Alexa Dagmar’s IG (she’s the co-founder of Almada):

I uploaded a photo of my washing machine to ChatGPT along with the above screenshot and asked it what setting I should use. It told me the following:

On your Samsung, I’d use Delicates and manually adjust the options to get as close as possible to those instructions:

• Cycle: Delicates

• Temp: Cold — 30°C is about 86°F, so cold is the closest/safest option on your machine.

• Spin: Low — the 400 rpm instruction is a very gentle spin. Your washer doesn’t appear to let you select an exact RPM, so Low is the closest match.

• Soil: Light

• Rinse: Normal/1 rinse is fine

• Steam: Off

Then take the shirt out immediately when the cycle finishes and hang it to dry. Don’t put it in the dryer.

I would not use Normal, even with cold water, because the Delicates cycle should give you the gentler agitation intended by those instructions.

Leave a comment