For inventing the hospital gown.
Dr. Seymour Butts invented the hospital gown. He may have collaborated with someone else, but I assure you it was not Tim Gunn. This garment—also known as a patient gown, exam gown, or johnny shirt—is a short-sleeved, thigh-length, awkwardly sized garment worn by patients in hospitals and other medical facilities. If you have never worn one, you must be the picture of health, or perhaps have been imprisoned since birth in an Austrian basement, having never seen the light of day.
Whether worn frontward or backward, they’re awkward, uncomfortable, and quite revealing.
The “better” hospital gown is made of cotton that can withstand repeated laundering in hot water and is fastened at the back with twill tape ties. However, 80 percent of hospitals now use disposable hospital gowns made of ungainly paper or thin plastic. Both suck equally.
Mr. Butts, you stink as a designer. And, quite frankly, we must put some blame on the fashion industry too. Why hasn’t someone designed something better? It seems to me that there is a lot of money to be made if every patient in every hospital needs one. And Tim Gunn, you should share the blame as well. Though few would debate that the old version looks better when worn by Heidi Klum, why have your “designers” NOT had a “challenge” where they had to create a fashion-forward hospital habit?