Pajamas

Callot Soeurs

1926–27 · silk · Costume Institute

While Poiret had established pantaloons and harem trousers as high-fashion options, especially in his gala "1002nd Night" ball, building on the Orientalist ideas of Amelia Bloomer's "Turkish trousers," designers in the 1920s took pajamas to the beach and to informal, at-home use. Of course, the barrier between leisure and formal dress was permeable in the 1910s and 1920s, as is evident in the emergence of the Fortuny tea gown into evening dress as well as pajamas progressing from boudoir to drawing room. Even to make pajamas would have been, a decade or two earlier, the fashion equivalent of making something as unprepossessing as a collage.

Artist

Callot Soeurs

Date

1926–27

Medium

silk

Culture

French

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Miss Isabel Shults, 1944