Our group chat had been raging for three days over who owed how much money for Bears tickets when my friend Danny dropped this into the thread with no context: A screenshot of a men’s Where’s Wally pajama set. White and red stripe Where’s Wally shirt. Matching Where’s Wally pants. UK website. No caption. No message.
Just “for Kevin’s birthday, thoughts on size.” Within ninety seconds, six people had advice. Two said to get his normal size. Two said to size up because “novelty stuff always runs small.” One dude—fuck this guy forever—said “just get XL, it’s pajamas nobody’s tailoring pajamas.” This latter opinion, above all else, got away from Kevin and me, because it is wrong in a way that sounds right and I took far too long arguing against it when nobody cared.
What this comment gets wrong is that people treat pajama sizing like it doesn’t matter because pajamas aren’t supposed to be fitted. When I put on pajamas, sure, nobody’s out here getting my flannels custom hemmed by some clothier on Michigan Ave. But “it doesn’t need to fit precisely” does not equal “sizing is meaningless so just guess big.” The latter is false and the former is true. Once you’ve been burnt by pajama sizing enough you learn it actually does follow a pretty straightforward logic, and each person in that group chat had a different article of sleepwear give them problems is because they were each describing a different fit failure. That’s what we should’ve talked about instead of flexing our knowingly opinions, two true things that actually affect whether or not the pajamas someone orders will be good or a laughing stock.
Novelty pajamas and shirts do not size the same as regular clothing
I get it. If you shop for sleepwear from the same places year after year, usual brands that reprint the same three colors of flannel pants each season, you size relatively the same because they’re using the same factory, same pattern, same designers, year after year. Novelty stuff, shirts with licensed characters like Where’s Wally, means somebody out there paid to put those faces and quotes and colors on a shirt, partnered with whatever clothing maker would give them the cheapest product, and that manufacturer now thinks a large means something completely different than your normal, everyday brand. I learned this lesson two sizes too small on a licensed Homer Simpson pajama set I bought my brother two Christmases ago. Got his normal large because…well I’ll say it why everyone else did. Novelty shirts run small! And the shirt that came back looked like a crop top on a 6’0” dude. Not sort of snug. Not “maybe sized down.” It was literally the same shirt doing a terrible job of fitting someone his actual size.
This is what I wanted to tell everyone in our Dudes Being Dudes About PJs chat but nobody wants to hear: That big guy’s normal size in Nike or J. Crew or whatever doesn’t matter when you’re shopping for underwear themed after his favorite movie. Once you buy into a licensed product, something designed with the copyright owner first and actual clothing needs second, you are only as good as the size chart on that listing. Doesn’t matter what he usually wears. Doesn’t matter what size he thinks he wants. If there’s no size chart under that picture, you’re blindly guessing. The better Where’s Wally listings have learned people got burned enough over the years they include the chest measurement in inches next to the L or the XL or whatever, because clothing brands that are just spinning shit into hats have to cover themselves now. Trust that number more than the size label itself. I actually Googled the measurement breakdown for that specific pajama set before Danny clicked “purchase” because of Simpsons experience and low and behold, Kevin’s normal large was right on the bottom edge of that “large” spectrum, making XL the smart choice, not because novelty runs small across the board, but because that particular listing did.
The other wild half of pantsing nobody in that chat wanted to hear, which made one guy send literal sighing emojis when I explained it, is pajamas like this are cut deliberately boxier than actual clothing. Novelties, jerseys, things that you’re not going to wear in public outside of July in Chicago, are universally cut with more room than you think is comfortable. It’s a weird hack the manufacturers use because something too tight on you will highlight how bad the sewing job is on those pants, but something with a shapeless fit works on every guy out there and lets them use the same pattern sizes. That’s not innately bad! Just means boxy doesn’t equal roomy and you could very well find yourself with a shirt that’s wide in the torso but short in the sleeves. Which is exactly what happened to me because these folks weren’t actually grading out their pattern sizes, they were just slapping a number on larger versions of the same shape.
The single part of pajama fit that matters is the rise and length
The second you understand that shit size chart is actually doing you a favor, the mistake we kept screaming over in that chat is focusing on the wrong number. Everyone’s arguing over chest size like these shit are dress shirts and that’s not the part of a pajama set that’s important. The chest and waist on any garment with an elastic waistband or a drawstring have an in-built forgiveness a shirt from the GAP doesn’t.
Be off by an inch or two and it hardly matters on any given day. What makes a bad pajama is the rise not sitting right or pants so shorts you look like Lil Baby in adult clothing, and neither of those problems shows up on a size guide or matter when you pick your chest measurement.
Rise and length are the secret sauce on pants nobody talks about because it doesn’t fit on a spec sheet, it’s something you start noticing when you’re pulling your pants up for the third day straight. Kevin is exactly that tall, big legged guy whose sleeping pants were pulling up too high every time he sat down. 6’2” with a completely average torso, making him the worst possible type to get boxy novelty pants designed by people who think height and weight scale evenly up. So we sized him up for the chest room and just told him he might have to hike these pants a little high.
None of our normal sizes applied because the listing didn’t cater to guys like him, tall with-average-weight-but-still-too-long-for-the-pants-in-question legs. And to pretend we could guess at his size like it was the exact same pajama set we were used to just because “it’s pajamas!” would’ve been as bad as assuming he wore his normal size everywhere. Here’s the reality of pajama shopping nobody wants to admit: Sizing isn’t precise, it’s just inconsistent. There’s no industry standard to pull from because every brand does it differently, so your job isn’t guessing at what size your buddy is on some website’s pillowslip. Your job is knowing whether that size chart is going to fail you at the chest and forgive you or at the leg and leave you explaining to your mom why you can’t sleep at her house.
Marcus started the menswear section after getting fed up with coverage that called a two hundred and fifty pound hoodie an easy Tuesday buy. Based in London, he writes about pricing, returns policies and what brands actually deliver.
