''Raj pattern'' ( th, ราชปะแตน, , ) refers either to a Thai men's

costume Costume is the distinctive style of dress or cosmetic of an individual or group that reflects class, gender, profession, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch. In short costume is a cultural visual of the people. The term also was tradition ...

consisting of a white Nehru-style jacket with five buttons, a ''

chong kraben ''Sompot Chong Kben'' ( km, សំពត់ចងក្បិន, ; th, โจงกระเบน, ; lo, ຜ້າຫາງ, ''pha hang'') is a unisex, lower body, wraparound cloth worn in the countries of Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. It is ...

'', knee-length

socks A sock is a piece of clothing worn on the feet and often covering the ankle or some part of the calf. Some types of shoes or boots are typically worn over socks. In ancient times, socks were made from leather or matted animal hair. In the late ...

and

dress shoes A dress shoe (U.S. English) is a shoe to be worn at smart casual or more formal events. A dress shoe is typically contrasted to an athletic shoe. Dress shoes are worn by many as their standard daily shoes, and are widely used in dance, for part ...

, or to the specific form of the jacket itself. It was worn chiefly during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by government officials and the upper class in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populati ...

, and nowadays is used in select circumstances as a

national costume A folk costume (also regional costume, national costume, traditional garment, or traditional regalia) expresses an identity through costume, which is usually associated with a geographic area or a period of time in history. It can also indicat ...

History and use

The ''raj pattern'' was devised by King Chulalongkorn during his visit to

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

in 1871, where he hired a

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

tailor to make a jacket with a standing

collar Collar may refer to: Human neckwear *Clerical collar (informally ''dog collar''), a distinctive collar used by the clergy of some Christian religious denominations *Collar (clothing), the part of a garment that fastens around or frames the neck ...

and buttoned vertical opening. Previously in 1870, the king had had his entourage dress in a combination of ''chong kraben'' (a wrap worn with part of the fabric folded back between the legs and tucked behind the waist) and Western

suit jacket A suit jacket, also called a lounge jacket, lounge coat or suit coat, is a jacket in classic menswear that is part of a suit. Single and double-breasted Most single-breasted suit jackets have two or three buttons, and one or four buttons are unu ...

, socks and shoes during his visit to

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

and

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

. This new jacket replaced the suit jacket, alleviating the need for a separate layer of shirt in the hot climate, and the dress soon became the de facto civil uniform. It was worn both officially and privately and remained popular until the Pibulsonggram era, when the ''chong kraben'' was banned by

cultural mandate In Judaism, Christianity, and some other Abrahamic religions, the cultural mandate is the divine injunction found in Genesis 1:28, in which God, after having created the world and all in it, ascribes to humankind the tasks of filling, subduing, ...

. The name ''raj pattern'', from

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...

''rājā'' and English ''pattern'' and meaning ''royal pattern'', was coined by Phon Bunnak (later the Chao Phraya Phasakorawong), who was acting as royal secretary during the king's journey. Nowadays, the full ''raj pattern'' costume is worn only on select occasions as a national costume, and is employed regularly only in the tourism industry. The jacket, however, has found continued use in the

dress uniform Full dress uniform, also known as a ceremonial dress uniform or parade dress uniform, is the most formal type of uniforms used by military, police, fire and other public uniformed services for official parades, ceremonies, and receptions, ...

s of the civil and military services, as well as the formal clothing worn with the '' suea khrui'' as the academic dress of certain universities, where it is worn with trousers in the Western style. Another Thai garment which is very similar in design is the '' suea phraratchathan''.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite RID, edition=2542 {{cite journal, last=Phakdiphumin, first=Chunlada , script-title=th:เสื้อเสนากุฎ, journal=Sakulthai, date=26 August 2003, volume=49, issue=2549, url=http://www.sakulthai.com/DSakulcolumndetailsql.asp?stcolumnid=2359&stissueid=2549&stcolcatid=2&stauthorid=13, access-date=5 June 2010, language=th Thai clothing Folk costumes History of Asian clothing Court uniforms and dress