The History of Pajamas from Fashion to Sleepwear
By Riley Seymour | Mar 22, 2023
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By Riley Seymour | Mar 22, 2023
By Riley Seymour | Mar 22, 2023
We might be biased because we make ultra-comfortable, temperature-regulating pajamas here at Cozy Earth, but we feel like the popular nightwear is often taken for granted. With 74% of Americans wearing PJs to bed, and a growing number wearing them all day because they're more comfortable than jeans when working from home, let's take a moment to consider the history of pajamas.
In their current form, pajamas are comfortable sets of nightwear consisting of pants or shorts and a matching top. They can be made from any comfortable material, including bamboo viscose, silk, flannel, and cotton. But they didn't start out as sleepwear. In fact, their history may surprise you.
One of the earliest known references to pajamas dates back to the 1600s when a Frenchman named Jean de Thevenot mentioned the Portuguese wore them when going to bed in his travelogue. The Europeans adopted the comfortable clothing from India, where Muslim men and women wore them as part of their daily dress. In that culture, the meaning of pajamas (or pyjamas) was comfortable pants that tied at the waist and were appropriate for both men and women to wear in public. When the colonial British brought them back to England, merchants called them "mogul's breeches" and touted them as comfortable fashionwear. Around 1870, they became popular loungewear for men, and by the early 1900s, they had evolved into the popular sleepwear we know today.
Tracing the spread of the popularity of PJs through the years, we can see their evolution from their South Asian roots to our popular sleepwear.
Whether you're reading this in the comfort of your bedroom or taking a mental break from back-to-back virtual meetings in your home office, we hope this brief history of pajamas has inspired you to elevate your loungewear to the most comfortable you can find. May we humbly suggest our own?
Made with Viscose from Bamboo
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