Like the dressing gown, a coat also snatched from the East and brought back as a souvenir by European settlers, pajamas are light pants from India, whose origin dates back to the Ottoman Empire. Associated with a thin jacket, it invites itself from the end of the XIXe century in our latitudes as a replacement for the nightgown.
Despite repeated attempts, the times are not ready to accept the wearing of pants for women. In France, the order in force of 16 Brumaire Year IX (7 November 1800) provides that “Any woman wishing to dress as a man must go to the police headquarters to obtain authorization”. The bicycle and the struggle to be able to do it, the enthusiasm for sport and leisure, the exoticism of the Ballets Russes will help to change the situation, and provide additional support to feminist discourse.
From 1911, the avant-garde couturier Paul Poiret scandalized with his outdoor pajamas or culottes, known as “Turkish pants”. After the first war, the gotha took over the seaside resorts and Juan-les-Pins was renamed “Pyjamapolis” for a time. On the sand as in the villas at the end of the day, trendy women wear beach pajamas, designed by Rochas or Schiaparelli.
Wake up time
Cinema has nothing to do with this meager advance towards sartorial equality. In the nocturnal scenes, from Claudette Colbert to Meg Ryan, the directors prefer their actresses in nightgowns, undressed or in satin dressing gowns. Lauren Bacall and Grace Kelly can attest to this. When she is not hypersexualized, the woman in pajamas wears a daddy model on the screen, Bourvil and de Funès style in The big mop, or regressive pajamas, like Bridget Jones. Even Yoko Ono, protesting in bed with John Lennon against the war in Vietnam, wears a nightgown.
In a completely different register, pajamas evoke the (mentally) sick and prisoners, of which it is the attribute, the stripe having the dehumanizing function, since the Middle Ages, to wipe its wearer from society. Conversely, for those who are well integrated socially, the outdoor pajamas are proving to be a fashion object, temporarily brought up to date in the 1960s and which are now coming out of a deep sleep. On the catwalks as on the red carpets, the biggest stars, from Beyoncé to Tilda Swinton, via Billie Eilish, seem to want to wake up the sleepy city of “Pyjamapolis”.
