Traditional Thai clothing

Portrait of Siamese State Official, one of portrait paintings collection in The Portraits of Periodical Offering of Imperial Qing by Xie Sui, 18th century painting in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

Du Royaume de Siam by Simon de La Loubère shows a Siamese official wearing lombok and pha chung hang and a traditional Thai house

Historically, both Thai males and females dressed themselves with a loincloth wrap called pha chung hang.[1]^{:Note 10} Men wore their pha chung hang to cover the waist to halfway down the thigh, whilst women wore their pha chung hang down the waist to well below the knee.[2] Members of the nobility wore silk robes called khrui and a tall, pointed hat called lomphok in attendance of royal affairs. Bare chests and bare feet were accepted as part of the Thai formal dress code, and are observed in murals, illustrated manuscripts, and early photographs up to the middle–1800s.[2] Prior to the 20th century, the primary markers that distinguished class in Thai clothing were the use of cotton and silk cloths with printed or woven motifs, but both commoners and royals alike wore wrapped, not stitched clothing.[3] Traditional Thai attire changed significantly during the Rattanakosin period.

Prior to the 1700s, Thai men and women both kept their hair long. However, following the Burmese–Siamese wars of 1759-1760 and 1765–1767 and repeated Burmese invasions into Ayutthaya, central Thai women began cutting their hair in a crew-cut short style, which remained the national hairstyle until the 1900s.[4]

From the 1860s onward, Thai royals "selectively adopted Victorian corporeal and sartorial etiquette to fashion modern personas that were publicized domestically and internationally by means of mechanically reproduced images."[3] Stitched clothing, including court attire and ceremonial uniforms, were invented during the reign of King Chulalongkorn.[3] Western forms of dress became popular among urbanites in Bangkok during this period.[3] During the early–1900s, King Chulalongkorn encouraged Thai women to wear long hair instead of traditional short hair which later became a trend during the reign of King Vajiravudh along with wearing pha sin (ผ้าซิ่น), a tubular skirt, instead of the pha chung hang (โจงกระเบน), a cloth wrap.[5]

On 15 January 1941, Plaek Pibulsonggram issued a Thai cultural mandate to modernize and Westernize Thai dress, by deeming the long-practiced customs of wearing underpants, wearing no shirt, or wearing a wraparound cloth, as forms of inappropriate public attire.[6]

The formal Thai costume, ชุดไทยพระราชนิยม (RTGS: chut thai phra ratcha niyom, literally, 'Thai dress of royal endorsement'), includes several sets of dress, designed as the Thai national costume at formal occasions. Although described and intended for use as national costume, it is of relatively modern origins, having been conceived in the second half of the 20th century.

• Xout lao
• Raj pattern
• History of Thai clothing
• Formal Thai national costume
• Culture of Thailand
• School uniforms in Thailand

• Conway, Susan, and Mūnnithi Čhēm ʻĒt Dapbœ̄nyū Thō̜msan. Power dressing: Lanna Shan Siam 19th century court dress. Bangkok: James H.W. Thompson Foundation, 2003.
• Conway, Susan. Thai Textiles. London: British Museum Press, 1992.
• Lu, Sylvia. Handwoven Textiles of South-East Asia. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988.
• Meanmas, Chavalit. Costumes in ASEAN. Thailand: The National ASEAN Committee on Culture and Information of Thailand, 2000.
• Wee, C. J. Wan. Local cultures and the "new Asia": The State, Culture, and Capitalism in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002.

• Traditional Thai Costumes
• Thai National Costume
• The Formal Thai National Costume
• Thai National Costume in Thailand