The Fascinating History of the Ugly Christmas Sweater Pajama Onesie

As if the ugly Christmas sweater pajama onesie of 2018-19 wasn't weird already, did you know that there is actually a fairly detailed back story connected to the creation of the one-piece garment that goes back to the 1400s, even though, as far as anyone actually knows, the footed, one-piece pajama suit really started appearing in American culture in the late 19th century. Of course, the onesie is best known as being something a young child or a baby wears for the first couple years of their life, but it first made its appearance during the Civil War from 1861-1865. Back then, and even today for the sake of nostalgia, they were called "union suits." Soldiers wore one-piece long underwear that had originally been designed in Utica, New York by a company that specialized in making women's wear. Union Suits became popular in the late-19th century because it served many soldiers, outdoorsmen, as their extra layer for warmth when they were either out on the battlefield or out in the woods hunting or working.

While it is unknown as to when the union suit turned a variety of colors, originally they were gray, made of scratchy wool, and featured a flap over the butt area, which Civil War soldiers nicknamed "access hatch," "drop seat," and someone later dubbed, the "fireman's flap," and "bum flap."

The Union Suit became the "Long John" in the 1940s when a company in Michigan started manufacturing them for children. When the Michigan Central Woolen Company nicknamed them "Blanket Sleepers," they did as a way to market them as a footed-pajama for children under the age of fourteen. Manufactured as pajamas that were better than regular pajamas, the Michigan company advertised the blanket sleeper as an item made with "hygienic fabric, knit from a special yarn spun in own mills from unbleached cotton," when they started appearing in department stores around the United States in the late-1940s.

Celebrities even wore them in the 1940s and 1950s. Famously, the United Kingdom's Winston Churchill had a special pajama onesie that he liked to wear, which he dubbed his "Siren Suit." It was a onesie, but unlike the American-made version that generally was exclusively manufactured as a button-up garment, Churchill's onesie featured a body-length zipper that the Prime Minister of England was fond of wearing underneath his clothes during the nights when he was forced to be outside to monitor the nightmare air raids on England during World War II.

Today, almost serving everyone like a piece of pop culture nostalgia, the pajama onesie has been making a comeback since the late-1990s. When the company JumpinJammerz reintroduced the pajama onesie to consumers in 1998, the adult-sized pajamas not only featured fun patterns but also had the footies intact. The resurgence of the onesie pajama for children and adults of the 1990s has to lead to today's ugly Christmas sweater pajama onesie, which can be seen on such websites as UglyChristmasSweater.com. In fact, the ugly Christmas sweater pajama onesie has been such a major trend this year that celebrities again are starting to wear the garment to not only celebrate the holidays on social media but to also show everyone there was something to the good old fashion days.