The UK is presently divided on a fundamental question which affects everyone, no matter their station, and is guaranteed to shape daily life for years to come. I am referring, of course, to the great Top Sheet debate – whether to use one or not. And while I don't know Nigel Farage's position on this issue, I'm also perfectly fine with that, because the less time spent thinking about the Brexit Party leader in bed, the better.
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Like Brexit, though, the top sheet debate has to do with Europe. That's because it is the northern European way not to use a top sheet; in those countries they simply throw a doona, with cover, on a fitted sheet and hop in. I first became aware of this while travelling in Germany a while back. It was during this trip I decided there has to be a multi-syllabic German word for the feeling of getting into a cosy bed and instinctively reaching into the void for a phantom top sheet.
We can assume continental Europeans are doing everything for a reason. They elect politicians who happen to have PhDs in quantum chemistry, and eat cheese after the meal rather than filling up on it before. Also, their cars basically reverse into a park for you. But at first I found it challenging to get behind – under? – their lack of top sheets. Chiefly because doonas are a pain to clean, and the temperature regulation available to sleepers under only one layer leaves a lot to be desired. We English speakers generally embrace the top sheet, but the big exception is the UK, where there's a divide between generations. (Older, top sheet; younger, without. Which maybe speaks to each group's feelings about their European neighbours.)
Bedding, as we think of it, is a pretty new idea anyway. Until recently, all sheets were flat, without elastic. It was 1959 when an African-American woman, Bertha Berman, patented the fitted sheet – that is, a sheet with elastic corners which tucked under the mattress. In 1977, poor William Edwin Root had less luck with his design: a top sheet with elastic in the bottom corners to avoid the twist, which is emphatically not what Chubby Checker had in mind. Today, top sheets remain the peskiest part of making the bed.
Perhaps younger people are also rejecting the top sheet because climate change means we should probably do less laundry. (Here's where I add the caveat for germophobes that if you go without a top sheet, experts still advise washing the doona cover every week.) Not washing things happens to be very 2019. Recently the fashion designer and noted environmentalist Stella McCartney told The Guardian that her "rule of thumb" was "if you don't absolutely have to clean anything, don't clean it … I'm not a fan of dry-cleaning or any cleaning, really." (I knew my aversion to the dullest of household chores was chic!)
Even in America, the land of buying things you don't really need, people are moving away from top sheets. Call them top-sheet truthers. According to the very trendy Los Angeles bedding company Parachute, which advertises on all your favourite podcasts, there's been a recent, discernible shift, to the point where nearly 40 per cent of customers only want a bottom sheet. If you want a flat sheet, you'll have to buy it separately.
Now's not the time to remove any layers from the bed. It's hibernation season, after all. But come spring, maybe it's time for a change. Three sheets to the wind? How about just the one?
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