Elizabeth Taylor popularized the caftan in the 1960s in the same way Jackie Kennedy popularized the pillbox hat.

The French invented the negligee, but it took Americans to create loungewear for the torpid and tacky.

We've got the Slanket, the Snuggie, Pajama Jeans and now the ForeverLazy, a fleece onesie that makes you look like a Teletubby.

The TV commercial touts ForeverLazy as "the one-piece lie-around, lounge-around lazy wear." It was invented by two guys from Wisconsin, the cheese and lazy-wear capital of the U.S.

If Americans can't stomach the thought of buttoning a waistband, as the boom in sloth togs implies, I suggest a stylish solution: Lounge like Liz.

Elizabeth Taylor lounged like a star. She spent much of the 1960s wearing white, flowing nighties and robes and chilling - both herself and her champagne - in hotel rooms while her husband, Richard Burton, made movies.

One of Elizabeth's gal pals, Vicky Tiel - a fashion designer who's stopping in Palm Beach next week for a private book signing - told me so in a phone call from New York, where Tiel was signing copies of her book It's All About the Dress: What I Learned in Forty Years about Men, Women, Sex and Fashion.

Tiel also confided that since Elizabeth's hotel frocks were a tad flimsy - see-through, if you must know - she offered to make Elizabeth something comfy that would be sexy but not cause heart arrhythmia in the room-service waiters.

Her solution: A caftan.

"A giant rectangle in matte jersey doubled over with two small slits for sleeves and one large slit for the head," Tiel explains in her book. "Although the rectangle was large, the matte jersey draped sensually, clinging to the body, especially the breasts."

That's the key to a sexy caftan: At the breasts, cling. Below that, swing.

Otherwise you end up with a muumuu, the signature lazy-wear of Mrs. Roper on Three's Company.

Ultimately, Elizabeth Taylor did for caftans what Jackie Kennedy did for the pillbox hat - she made something simple incredibly glamorous.

Caftans became her favorite look, and several are among the 950 personal items being auctioned this month by Christie's. The caftan Taylor wore for her second wedding to Richard Burton has an auction estimate of $12,000 - though it will almost certainly sell for much more.

Tiel recently wrote a piece about the power of Taylor's caftans for The Huffington Post:

"The caftan was the ideal garment for an imprisoned movie star who loved to eat, and was also the perfect carefree, exotic ensemble to entice her handsome, sensual husband, Richard Burton, into bed or at least to entice him to put down his book."

For women out there with similar seduction plans, Tiel suggests you dump the Slanket and wait patiently until April 19.

That's when she will be selling Elizabeth-inspired silk caftans on HSN in a two-hour show that promises to bring star glamour back to the forever-lazy couches of America.