It occurred to me that I don’t know who I am anymore when it comes to sleepwear. When you think about it, we go through a lot of sleepwear stages, pyjamas and nighties as children, boxer shorts and singlets as teenagers, whatever takes your fancy in your 20s and beyond.

In my case it’s always been vintage satin slips from op shops and flea markets, but the world has pretty run out of those now, or the ones that are left are exorbitantly priced because of the scarcity factor.

Marilyn Monroe famously slept in the nude, apparently in a cloud of Chanel 5, which, while it sounds very chic, certainly wouldn’t be my first option.

I’ve never slept nude. Maybe it was all those years of single living, and shared households when I thought I might have to leap out of bed with a baseball bat to fend off an intruder at any given moment and I wanted to be clothed.

But I will not sleep in a big T-shirt or anything unglamorous. I like silk pyjamas and I love long-length bias-cut slips, but they absolutely have to be pure silk, not polyester, otherwise you become ball of static and will zap yourself on the kettle.

La Perla, Loretta Caponi and Olivia Von Halle make exquisite versions. But again, pure silk is pricey and has to be hand-washed (even though well chosen sleepwear has an excellent cost-per-wear factor).

I’ve aged out of camisoles and French knickers, and I can’t do cute shortie PJ sets anymore. Now I’m struggling to find the perfect pyjama. I find polished cotton men’s style pyjamas restrictive and flannelette revolting.

There are beautiful sleepwear brands like Eberjey that have soft stretch jersey or modal pyjama separates, but I often find even these too hot for Sydney. I feel like they are more for lounging around in Sweden in late autumn, with cashmere socks.

Linen PJs are an option, but I definitely want them to be oversized, which often means waking up looking like an unmade bed in your unmade bed.

I’ve tried a few pairs of short-sleeved linen pyjamas, but they look a bit ordinary, and often the elastic on the shorts start to fold over, which is one of the most annoying fashion problems around.

One of my friends wears those long, white, chaste cotton nighties with pin tucks and cap sleeves which I’ve always thought were a bit Nana, probably because my Nana wore them.

Mum wore black satin slips and sexy pink Bri-Nylon peignoirs until she moved to floral cotton in her 60s, so I think my taste comes from her. I’m not ready for floral cotton yet.

I stayed with another extremely glamorous friend in Paris last year and discovered she wears these sheer white knee-length cotton nighties with embroidered lace straps from Germany that look like undergarments in a 18^th-century film, absolutely stunning, but ridiculously expensive.

But I think I’ve landed on that style. I want a pretty, fine white cotton, sleeveless, mid-length bed dress that’s not $1000 and makes me look like I’m starring in Dangerous Liaisons.

I’m on the hunt.