When the communist government came to power in 1975, it tried to ban blue jeans, calling them bourgeois Western decadence. It even tried to do away with the sin, the traditional sarong-like women's lower garment, but the government soon had to back down. The sin is a very practical garment—one size fits all. It is a tube of cloth folded with a pleat to fit the waist and secured with a belt or a tuck in the waist. Worn above the breasts, it makes a useful garment for bathing in the public stream or well, which is necessary since few village homes have bathrooms. A dry garment is slipped over the wet garment, which is then dropped without any loss of modesty. Lao women continue to wear the sin, sometimes adapted into a skirt, with a blouse. On special occasions women wear handwoven silk sin with beautiful tie-dyed patterns and a colorful woven and embroidered strip added to the hem.
Lao men wear shirt and pants, but bathe and relax around the house in a phakhawma, a cloth about two yards long and thirty inches wide that can be worn as a skirt-like garment or wrapped into shorts. Little children often go naked or wear only a shirt. It is common for people to go barefoot or wear rubber sandals. In the cities, of course, Western dress is common.