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How The Horrors Of War Made Pajamas Fashionable
The now popular sleepwear came into fashion because of areas impacted by nighttime bombing during World War I
Pajamas, typically consisting of a smartly colored and designed shirt and pants, are some of the most popular nightwear in the world. While they have been around for hundreds of years they only began being popular in Europe and then the United States due to bomb attacks that occurred in World War I.
The origin of pajamas (sometimes called pyjamas) date back centuries to lightweight pants that were worn by Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. They began to make their way westward as British colonists in the 18th and 19th centuries borrowed some of what they saw and experienced culturally during the height of their trade and occupation in the Indies. However, it wasn’t until the 1870s that pajamas attracted any real attention as a fashion in the west.
According to Sarah Zhang of The Atlantic, a major catalyst in popularizing pajamas was World War I. As the conflict evolved in Europe, residents of London began experiencing bombings at the hands of Germans, who utilized zeppelins and then planes to drop their deadly payloads. Eventually, to up the ante on the terror, these bombings transitioned to sometimes occurring during the night.
