Why lush silk pyjamas are the perfect way to stay in and dress up this winter
Let’s face it, January has little to recommend it apart from being the perfect time to indulge in a pair of silk pyjamas. they don’t even have to be pure silk — crepe de chine, satin, even, frankly, a smidgeon of polyester is acceptable.
the main thing is that they should glide and slither over the body in a delicious and some might say impractical manner. But anyone making that observation would be missing the point.
the point of silk pyjamas, the reason they have held such allure over the decades, is that with their weighty, slippery smoothness and their wafting hems, they are a piece of clothing that lifts us out of the humdrum.
What more can you ask from a garment whose very purpose is leisure and lounging? especially now, when opportunities for dressing up to go out are rare. In silk pyjamas you can dress up to stay in.
It was the 19th century when a type of pyjama first became popular in Western society. Introduced from the east, where traders and explorers first encountered them, pae jamas were essentially a loose drawstring pant. In hot climates these were everyday wear, but once imported back home they became nightwear — not for women but for men, who began to swap their long nightshirts for these trousers, which indicated that you were a cultured, well-travelled type of guy.
Fast-forward to the 20th century and the different climate post-World War I. Women, whose dress had always been so restrictive and designed almost deliberately to hamper their movements, with layers of undergarments and trailing hems, began to have different lives. Lives that were more like those of men.
they could drive cars, they worked in offices, they had bank accounts, they travelled abroad and their clothes reflected this new status. they were more free to move.
The first fashionable women’s pyjamas were for the wealthy, whose lifestyle included travel and, specifically, time spent at the beach — Biarritz, Palm Beach, Gatsby’s Long Island. It was, predictably, Coco Chanel, with her beady eye on the culture of the times, who took pyjamas mainstream.
she wasn’t the first to design them — master couturier Paul Poiret had for years produced richly decorated silk pyjamas for privileged clients — but she spotted the valuable role for pyjamas in the new transitory moments of the day.
An American Vogue article of 1927 describes how in Florida’s Palm Beach ‘many women change three times each morning, from dress to bathing-suit and then into pyjamas’.
Pyjamas, which are after all loose jackets and trousers, were perfect to wear from beach cover to the first sundowner. In cities, they were worn to meet people before dressing for dinner.
And it is these glamorous pyjamas that we lust after. Not the bobbly grandad Viyella pairs of old, perfectly accessorized with pipe and slippers.
Nor, heaven forbid, the frightful pairing of a t-shirt-style top with baggy leggings that at some stage in the last decade became a sleepwear option.
Not even (although I personally have a fondness for them) prepschool striped cotton. No. today’s most desirable pyjamas are in lush satin, and a far more welcome gift than a box of tissue-wrapped red or black or even oyster lace lingerie.
It’s pretty hard to argue that pyjamas, no matter how sumptuous the fabric or exotic the pattern, have that same glaring, traffic-light sexuality of lace underwear. A baggy shirt and pants, even in silk, don’t always strike quite the same note in the red-blooded man that some other, more revealing items might. But that doesn’t mean that all men dislike them.
After all, many hollywood screen goddesses wafted around in silk pyjamas. And anyway, these are a self-indulgent treat and the fact that they make us feel good can also make us attractive to those around us. even men who might theoretically prefer their bedmate in a sliver of skimpy something or other. I owned my first silk pyjamas only a few years ago, when I was at Vogue and Dolce & Gabbana gifted all the fashion editors a pair, monogrammed with their initials.
Mine were in a dashing, vivid chartreuse and, unlike some of my colleagues, I wore them in the hotel room rather than the front row because, unlike them, I hadn’t spotted that silk pyjamas were a new fashion item.
that was 2016 and now, six
years on, I’m often to be found contemplating a new pair. I have to admit to a hankering for the crazy glam of a feather-trimmed pair of Sleepers I’ve spotted on Net-a-porter and fantasise about a richly patterned set by Olivia von Halle, the queen of luxury PJs.
But, in the meantime, I’m in love with a pair a friend gave me recently, from the slightly more affordable silkwear catalogue Patra. They are in a flattering blush-tinted cream, with a fine pink silk trim, and manage to be both beautifully light yet not remotely transparent, loose but not bulky.
I’ve pottered happily around the house wearing them over recent months, slightly resenting the moment I have to swap them for some proper clothes.
And they’re the best pair I’ve ever had for sleeping in, emerging uncreased to greet the day, unlike much of the rest of me.