Lemaire Pyjama Shirt

The pajama shirt is a real garment category with a consistent set of rules, and they all come from the same place: it was designed to be slept in. That means a soft unfused collar that lies flat rather than standing up, no interlining anywhere, a straight body cut with no shaping through the waist, and a relaxed sleeve that does not bind at the shoulder when lying down. Every one of those is a decision made against structure, and taken out of the bedroom the result is a shirt that behaves like nothing else in a wardrobe: it drapes from the shoulder as a single soft plane, with none of the built collar and chest that make a conventional shirt hold its shape. In pure silk that quality is doubled, because silk has weight and fluidity at the same time and falls in a way cotton cannot. Cloudy grey is a pale soft grey, and on silk a pale color shows the fiber's luster most clearly, since the sheen is what carries the color rather than pigment density.

A pajama-cut shirt in real silk is a genuinely different garment from a soft-collared cotton one, and the absence of structure is the point rather than an economy. Cloudy grey shows the cloth.

Taking a garment from outside the day wardrobe and building it properly enough to wear out is a recurring Lemaire idea.

100% silk. Made in Tunisia, in cloudy grey. We do not hold a description of the collar, the placket, or any piping, so the account above describes what a pajama cut is rather than asserting details of this one.

Cut straight and unstructured, so it hangs from the shoulder rather than being shaped through the body, and it is a shirt with no built collar to hold a line at the neck. We do not hold measurements, and there is no Lemaire size chart on this site.

Unstructured silk wants to be left alone, so worn loose rather than tucked hard, and with a trouser that has some weight to it so the contrast between fluid and firm is doing something. A pale grey silk is more forgiving in daylight than under artificial light.

Silk goes to a cleaner who is told it is silk. Keep it out of direct sun, which weakens and yellows it, and do not spot-treat at home, since water marks silk and the mark spreads beyond the original. A pale silk in particular shows perspiration marking, so it wants airing after each wear. Our fabric care guide has a section on silk.

In silk, the Light Plastron Top and the Balloon Skirt. The Relaxed Shirt is the fluid viscose one. Everything we carry from Lemaire is listed together.