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Wearing cozy, loose pants was in fashion in India and Iran long before it was popular in the West.
But when British colonialists saw the “piejamah,” loose soft pants many Indians and Iranians wore during the day, in the 1800s, they quickly adopted the comfy style — and started wearing it to bed.
Before then, Europeans and Americans mostly slept in big shirts — nightshirts for men, and nightgowns for women. According to NPR, the Brits called their new loose clothes “pyjamas.” They had replaced nightshirts as normal sleepwear by the 1850s.
In the United States, Americans were slower to switch. But by the late 1920s, one U.S. newspaper had declared it the “pajama age,” with 9 in 10 American men wearing pajamas to bed instead of a nightshirt.
“The popularity of pajamas is universal,” a 1927 article in The Spokesman-Review read. “Yet 60 years ago one would have been hard put to it to find a single pair in the United States.“
Almost 100 years later, pajamas still are everywhere. In addition to being the clothing of choice for sleeping, they’re back in fashion as day clothes too — especially after the pandemic forced many people to go to school remotely and work from home.
So many students were staying in their PJs all day that one school district in Illinois even tried to enforce its no-pajama dress code while their students took classes from home.
But pajamas have proved they’re here to stay. Lots of school have special Pajama Days, where students and teachers are encouraged to wear their favorite PJs to school.
From footie pajamas to flannel sets, what’s your favorite pair?
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