Whatever Happened to Play Clothes?

School started yesterday and again I go through "when I was a kid..." with my son.  So much has changed.  I would always look forward to the back to school shopping to get new clothes and shoes.  These outfits were of course only for school and they were always nice enough to wear to church also.  Aside from seeing your friends again, getting to wear the new clothes was half of the excitement of going back to school.  Everyone looked so nice in brand new clothes and we were always careful at recess not to get them dirty or torn.  We would lay our outfits out at night so there were no decisions to make in the morning.  Then of course, we had our play clothes.  When we got home after school, we had to change out of our school clothes and into our play clothes before we could go outside to play.  These days - kids essentially wear their play clothes to school.  There is no changing when they get home and their after school activities are often inside whereas we always played outside as long as the weather was nice.  

My son in now in Middle School and is playing sports.  His attire now consists of athletic shorts or pants, T-shirts and sweatshirts.  His excitement for school starting was wearing his new Jordan sneakers.  He was not allowed to wear the new sneakers until school started and he just could not understand why.  When we went to the school last week to meet his new teacher and drop off supplies, he insisted on wearing his new shoes.  "But you said when I went to school" and yes - we were going to school.  So he got to wear his sneakers for an hour, but they went back in the closet when we got home.

So, whatever happened to play clothes?  I guess they are the new school clothes.