Don’t sleep on this trend.
While students have long been wearing pajamas to class, PJs as an everyday outfit has spread from the classroom to the cubicle.
Gen Z employees are now sporting the relaxed garment at the workplace, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
“Corporate girls wear pajamas to work,” a TikTok creator named Rachel captioned a recent videoin which she showed off her office outfit, silk pajama pants and all.
Rose Colcord, the founder of Cou Cou Intimates, said the only place she wouldn’t don the loungewear would be “an important first-impression business meeting.”
Her brand launched a pair of pajama pants for $118 last fall and nearly sold out in the first 48 hours of the exclusive subscriber sale. Meanwhile, luxury fashion houses have introduced their own iterations of the comfy chic garments in ready-to-wear collections, from Louis Vuitton to Dries Van Noten.
Younger generations wearing pajama pants in the workplace and classroom is likely a result of the comfy chic fad that was spearheaded by celebrities this summer — much to the chagrin of parents now eye-rolling their children’s outfit choices.
“They literally go with everything,” Luciana Leyva, a student and content creator, told The Journal, adding that she wore them to school paired with Birkenstocks.
“A bunch of people were like, ‘Oh my gosh, I love your pants.’”
Mom and radio host Anna Zapotosky told The Journal she thought it was “pajama day” at her daughter’s Connecticut high school when she pulled up to the building and saw the hoards of students in sleepwear. Then, she realized, “That’s just what they wear here now.”
“I was kind of horrified,” said Zapotosky, who posted a viral Instagram Reel on the topic. “To me, it just seems so lazy.”
But parents be damned, on TikTok — which is most popular with high schoolers and twenty-somethings — creators demonstrate how to style pinstripe, plaid, silk and linen pajamas for the classroom and beyond, often pairing the pants with sweaters or t-shirts.
“The comfort is next level!” rejoiced one TikTokker.
“Unpopular opinion: it’s totally acceptable to wear pajama pants as regular pants,” argued another.
Phoebe Chaytor, a Vancouver-based content creator and high schooler, told The Journal that the trousers of today are “very aesthetic” — they’re not the unsightly “plaid Christmas PJs” some critics might be imagining.
While her school does not enforce a strict dress code, others around the nation are starting to amend their guidelines to allow for the pajama pants trend, such as Georgia’s Whitfield County school district, which voted to add PJs into the rulebook.
“A number of our students, especially high school kids, want to sleep as late as possible,” committee member Chris Parker told The Journal. “So it’s easier to just have on pajama pants and a T-shirt and come to school.”
He hasn’t received any complaints from parents nor educators about the new ruling, saying he heard “more” when the district allowed shorter shorts in the classroom.
“There are other things administrators need to be focused on than if a kid has on pajama pants compared to leggings,” he said.
