Joy of joys. The full length caftan is back. No more strangling waist bands that make my legs go numb. No more dark panty hose to conceal legs the size of Kauri stumps.

From now on I’ll live in caftans, wafting around the house in a haze of bohemian glamour. I’ll throw away my knickers and start collecting hoop earrings. Not only that, I’ll eat like Elvis, put on 10kg and nobody will notice.

“I’ve waited 30 years for this moment,” I said parading my new caftan in a fetching shade of surgical green edged with matching sequins.

“You mean you’ve kept that thing in the cupboard 30 years?” he said, fixing me with a dead fish eye.

It wasn’t the reaction I’d been expecting. One look, I thought, and he’d be tearing it off me – with passion, not disapproval. Right now, he was exuding about as much fire and arousal as a refrigerator.

“No,” I said. “I bought it yesterday. Caftans are everywhere in the shops this season.”

“Is it a nightie?”

Honestly. How unsophisticated some people are.

“I was thinking of wearing it to your work dinner….with a matching shawl, of course.”

Not since I wore a satin Chinese pant suit on our first date had I seen such abject horror on his face.

“Isn’t that what that fat singer guy wore in the 70’s?”

“If you mean Demis Roussos the talented Greek vocalist who performed My Friend The Wind – yes. Except he isn’t fat any more. He’s even more tragic. He’s bald with a pony tail.”

“Well it would make a nice nightie,” he said, turning and leaving the room.

He has no idea. The caftan is a noble garment dating back to Biblical times. It has done nothing to be so maligned. Lots of famous people have taken the robe. Elvis had a royal blue caftan with gold embroidering and beading for pottering around Graceland. Barbara Streisand was spotted in numerous caftans. So was Cat Stevens, though personally I’d skip the accessories of turban, beard and sandals.

The anti caftan brigade would argue those people are Has Beens, and yes some of them were a little overweight. Let me toss in a reminder, however, that one of the Dixie Chicks (neither fat nor old) sported a floor length caftan with pink and purple vertical stripes not so long ago – until a cruel reporter said she was so badly dressed it was almost painful to recall.

Surely the younger generation would understand.

“Are you sick?” asked the 12 year old when she came home from school. “Is that why you’re in a nightie?”

“I was thinking of wearing it to a party.”

“Don’t, Mum.”

She said it with the severity of tone she’d use if I was planning to blow wave my hair while taking a bath.

“All right. On the school run.”

“Please don’t Mum!”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s giving you a wedgie,” she said. “You look like this.”

She turned around, shoved the back of her school uniform between her buttocks and waddled down the hall.”

“I do not!”

“You can’t see yourself, Mum. What’s for dinner?”

In no mood to cook for a cruel, unappreciative family, I declared it a Chicken Man night. The charming Chinese guy who sells rotisserie chicken and chips from his shop around the corner was bound to appreciate the grace and modesty of my caftan.

“Don’t go out like that!” she bellowed as I headed for the front gate. “At least wear a coat!”

Maybe I’m losing confidence. Something made me hesitate at the gate. Usually I can rely on one of them to back me up. With husband and daughter both threatening to disown me in my caftan, public appearances were beginning to seem risky. Even in front of Chicken Man.