We make Pajama pants every time of the year, no matter what the age or skill level, everyone loves a good pair of pajama pants. We are in the works of digitizing our favorite basic pant pattern to make a comprehensive sewing tutorial so that no matter where you are you can make a nice pair of universal pants.

In La Movida fashion, we always give our sewing patterns one final test in our youth sewing classes before recording and releasing our sewing pattern to the world. So as we gear up to teach and release this pattern it has me thinking.

Where did the pajama pants even originate?

Early Pants

Looking back on European Fashion history, it is pretty common to see what we would refer to and perceive as dresses on both Men and Women.

Young Italian men wear brimless caps, The Betrothal, c. 1470^[1] 

Which makes sense considering tailoring a pair of trousers is much more complex. When spinning fiber and weaving already take a long time (see my blog on textile technology) , especially for common folk, why would they spend more time hand sewing garments into other shapes?

The most pants adjacent they had in the renaissance was what was called ‘hose’ , which went from waist to feet and had an open crotch.

Charles IX of France wearing padded hose, 1566 

Breeches came about in 16th century Europe, which officially joined the two (or three if you’re counting the cod piece) together. 

Early Sleepwear

For a lot of that time, most people would have slept nude with a warm wool blanket over top. Alternatively some people would have slept in their undergarments, like the chemise.

Which later was adapted to nightgowns, around the 18th century.

Pajamas

Now, if you’re of asian descent (like me, Chinese) you already know where all of this was going. 

Largely fashion history, in classes and couture, will focus on European fashion history. But if we would follow the through line in Asia, the story would have been much longer. 

The word that “pajama” originated from would be the Persian “pāy-jāma,” meaning leg garment. This referred to loose fitting and comfortable pants that tied at the waist. 

Though the word originated from Persia, there are significant ties of the style to India (the Hindi pāyjāma). These are loose fitting pants commonly made from Silk or Cotton. 

Muslim Men wearing Paijama (Image: MKSTAGE) 

Now this part is extremely annoying to look up on the internet because so much of fashion history just centers around the European side.

Here are some helpful websites I found, switching my search to Indian & Persian fashion history (previous I was looking up the hindi name, but even that only gave me the definition or the European experience.

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/indian-textiles?srsltid=AfmBOoq4qe7dbvYX4Trak7DRtUy3AY5qMPMw4jR7eY-k5A7_ROzivdC_

https://world4.eu/persian-costume-history

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/2115038/where-word-pyjamas-comes-or-it-pajamas

So versions of these trousers, as far as I could trace back, would be around the 6th Century BC in Persia. Largely in India, they wore wrapped pieces of cloth, till the soonest 16th Century. 

But of course, I am no historian, please read my sources and then go read some other stuff too!

All of this adventure to say, This style began making its way to Europe in the 17th Century, due to the Mogule breeches. These were extremely baggy pants originally worn by the Mughal Empire (in India). These were worn as loungewear in England but they shortly fell out of fashion.

It wasn’t till the 18th Century till they were adopted into European sleepwear and then adapted into the modern Pajama’s we know today.

British Utility Underwear Clothing Restrictions on the British Home Front, 1942. 11 year old girl wearing wool pajamas as nightwear. 

PJ Pants

So largely we have South Asia to thank for our comfy pants of today! If you’re interested in learning how to make a pair, we have adult and kid classes running that teach them.

Or you can purchase some classic PJ fabric and make a pair of your own.

Further Reading

https://www.gilis.com/en/logbook/102-the-history-and-origin-of-pajamas

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/2115038/where-word-pyjamas-comes-or-it-pajamas

https://www.scribd.com/document/321691135/Pajamas-Wikipedia-The-Free-Encyclopedia