Born of Lockdown 2020, Cat Lady Life was the result of looking online for clothing that went with sweatpants. Of course, virtually everything goes with sweatpants, but we were after a specific kind of t-shirt. During the 1st Lockdown, we see all the major clothing retailers churn out those hugging, knitted 'loungewear' affairs. Of course, they were all very nice, but one was forced to be at least partially dressed and reasonably slim to make those things look good. Let's face it - you're not going braless in a bodycon knitted loungewear top and leggings ensemble are you? Even if it is just to pop out for a loaf of bread or to stick the bins out, it's just too much.
As a result, we began to live in sweatpants, and a large t-shirt left over from an ex-boyfriend who had long since been ghosted. The graphics and size of the t-shirt obscured free roaming boobs from unwanted attention, and there was the bonus of wearing no underwear with the sweatpants too. That was it - we were living the dream. Problem was, there was only one big old t-shirt to rely on. Sure, we tried going to buy women's t-shirts, but anything with calligraphy text or variations of 'je'taime', 'love' and the names of cities we'd never actually visited weren't exactly what we were looking for, not to mention lots of it was cropped. Yeah, we don't all have washboard stomachs either.
After a lot of rooting about online, in between staring at our navels and waiting to hear Bojo's latest update during Lockdown 2, we began to design our own t-shirts; designs, colours and fits that we would actually wear ourselves. With sweatpants obviously, but also to the gym and - when restrictions allowed - meeting up for socially distanced gossip sessions with friends. We then created our t-shirts - something that's big and colourful enough to be worn with sweatpants, but something that equally looks at home with some jeans and trainers for when we get to go outside again. The logic is that the ideal outfit should allow you to go out looking presentable, before entering the front door, taking your bra off by sliding it out the sleeve and popping your sweatpants back on.
With all that in mind, our little shop was born - we like to create the illusion that we're all put-together, stylish wimmin, with professional careers, but the reality is that 99% of the time, we live braless in big t-shirts, commando in sweatpants and surrounded by an army of cats whilst we work from our laptops in front of the latest Netflix box set. Working from home means we'll never have to don office wear again, and it's about time we did what we loved wearing something damned comfy.
