If you’ve read the Leveling Up series (aka Magical Midlife books) you know about the purple muumuus.
It started in book 2, Magical Midlife Dating, when Mr. Tom bought white sweats for the Ivy House crew to wear when working, as sweats are a lot easier to change in and out of than regular clothes. Of course, Edgar kept getting bloodstains on his and Niamh just got hers generally dirty, so only Mr. Tom had pristine white sweats while the rest of the crew looked a mess
In book 3, Magical Midlife Invasion, Jessie was advised to wear a muumuu for easy changing and opted for a brown muumuu. Why brown? No idea. Maybe that’s what she had on hand, or what the store had when she went shopping. Maybe it just looked good with her hair color. This is also when Mr. Tom gave up the game and ordered purple sweats for everyone instead of the white sweats. Much better to hide blood (and other) stains, and it was a nod to Jessie’s gargoyle color. She still kept with her brown muumuu though.
A few books later in book 6, Magical Midlife Challenge, Mr. Tom hid all the sweats and introduced the crew to their new house uniform, the purple muumuu. No one knows why. No one really knows why Mr. Tom does any of the things he does, but he does them all with confidence and a strong air of authority, so we just go along with it. There they all were, lined up on the sidewalk in preparation for a lovely day of interogating some invading mages, wearing matching purple muumuus. To Jessie’s complete surprise and embarrassment.
How did all of that translate into Purple Muumuu Day, you ask?
Well, we have a few readers who love cosplay. And one of them, Kate, cosplayed as Jessie the Gargoyle when KFB was signing books at Huntington Beach Barnes & Noble back in 2023. It is more fun to be part of a cosplay group, though, so when Kate was making plans to see KFB at Wild & Windy West in Phoenix in February of last year, she encouraged others to cosplay as well. And what is easier than wearing a muumuu? There we all were, at a romance book convention, wearing purple muumuus. There were about 40 of us in total. All in purple.
We made quite a stir.
And that has kind of been our thing ever since. We celebrated KFB’s birthday last year (April 13th) by wearing purple muumuus. This year I thought we could switch it up and don our very comfortable purple muumuus every time a new Magical Midlife book releases. Book 12 – Magical Midlife Rogue – releases in two days so March 19, 2026 is now Purple Muumuu Day.
Don’t have a muumuu? Maybe you have a dress, or a shirt, or a set of purple sweats? Any purple clothing will do. When we wear our purple, it’s like we are part of the crew. And there’s no fictional crew I love more than the Ivy House Crew – so much so that I wish they were real and they could join one of our meetups.
~Keri, aka The Hand of The Queen
ALL HALE THE QUEEN! I love it! Wish I was close enough to attend a gathering!❤️
If you’re in the US a meetup may be coming your way eventually!
🙂 Keri
Mr. Tom really did start the best trend. Let’s be honest, nothing beats the comfort of a muumuu for a marathon reading day! 😂💜
The muumuu is really peak comfort!
🙂 Keri
And then there’s me… where every day is the day to wear purple! 😂💜
So what you’re saying is that you *may* have something in your closet that is suitable for purple muumuu day? LOL!
🙂 Keri