Pajamas Beach - A 1930s fashion

This site aims to help you discover the way of beach pajamas that developed on the Cote d'Azur, and especially in JUAN-LES-PINS, 1920s to 1930s. The enthusiasm was such that all women wore pajamas beach, beach ... as in the city.


JUAN LES PINS, beach pajamas ...

"PYJAMAPOLIS 'thus the correspondent of" L'Illustration, R. of Beauplan, nicknamed the site of Juan les Pins, in 1931. The decade after the war, "the roaring twenties, had been bathed in optimism. The crisis was precipitated by 29 events and to bring out new concerns. Still, the artists were trying to avert the fate of their creation colored exuberance.

Fashion, art in its own right, participates in this movement, with the complicity and talented photographers who spread in magazines, photographs inspired the most beautiful women in the clothing created by leading designers of the era: LANVIN , Patou, Maggy Rouff, Schiaparelli, POIRET HEIM ... .. And of course, Coco Chanel, who was, among other things, launch and reveal the "PAJAMA BEACH", laying herself in this outfit in the great magazine "Vogue".
The pajamas, clothing consisting of 2 parts, baggy trousers and blouse (or bolero), was focused from the 20s, according to the hours of the day, the elegant women seeking novelty.
But this dress quickly became a sartorial madness, which will take vacationers to the Juan les Pins, delighted to highlight and to distract the eye during their walks by the sea, or in the evening social gatherings around a swimming pool, a glass of champagne in hand. All events (galas, beauty contest, elegance,) are all opportunities to present the finest in Pajamas (the ostentatious is sometimes an extra thanks!)
They come in various materials, depending on circumstances: canvas, silk, and the new jersey, married with delicious forms slender young women.
New color harmonies, new prints are required. Incrustations of lace and embroidery are providing the personal touch to each pajamas.
The great creative imagination compete for the Fair are even more beautiful and shine, day and night in this luxurious resort of Juan les Pins, which hosts all the Gotha of the great society of the time.
The Pajama knows such a craze, it becomes the symbol of the Cote d'Azur sun, carefree life, lightly.
A Juan les Pins, a local artist, Edmond Lahaye (former singer Montmartre, creator multiple) "appropriates" the new "darling of the beaches, with his characteristic humor, and draws vacationers in pajamas with cape and dog race. He publishes postcards and other designers, illustrators (S. Sir William Blackstone, Mr. Bloch) other publishers will follow suit (ADIA, ROSTAN - MUNIER, GILETTA & RELLA), a godsend.
The pajamas will "spread" on all major beaches resorts (Deauville, Trouville) of France, Belgium, crossing the Channel to show off to England and be devoted to Hollywood!
The postcards become good supports this mode, photographers providing publishers and their many shots where young women, mostly models, both contribute to the promotion of pajamas, at the Riviera. The pajamas appears.
Most great artists too, immortalize the Pajama such: A. ROUBTZOFF, Van Dongen, and Picasso (Woman sitting in beach pajamas - 1961), a follower of the beach of Juan les Pins where he was photographed with his friend P. ELUARD.

The fashion of the 30s was marked by the pajamas, which revealed modestly, the slender silhouette, the perfect lines of "top models" at the time. Fashion, like manners were advanced. Over the years, more and more freedom, less fabric ... will be shattered beach pajamas, replaced soon by the swimwear that will shrink visibly, and leave room the bikini is all the rage, then dethroned by the monokini ... to be reduced to its simplest expression ...
But that's another story!