How sleepwear became eveningwear for the A-list: celebrities from Margot Robbie and Angelina Jolie to Victoria Beckham and Katy Perry made designer pyjamas de rigueur for evenings out as well as nights in
- Bella Hadid, Hailey Bieber, Kate Moss and Kris Jenner are just a few of the other big names who wear their PJs and dressing gowns on the town
- Posh, Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow all made Olivia von Halle nightwear a pandemic-era trend – other designer sleepwear-as-evening-wear labels to watch include Asceno, Gilda & Pearl and Sleeper
When London-based designer Olivia von Halle launched her namesake label, the fashion world revolved around a very specific kind of va-va-voom.
“It was the end of the noughties, so it was all about tight Hervé Léger bandage dresses, huge six-inch Christian Louboutin heels. It was really uncomfortable, and very exposing,” von Halle tells Style in the bubblegum-pink reception room of her West London home.
The designer, who at the time worked as a trend forecaster in Shanghai, had a gut feeling that the pendulum was about to swing. She took matters into her own hands. Inspired by the pyjama-clad elderly out stretching and walking their dogs on the streets of city’s French Concession, she ordered tailor-made silk pyjamas for herself and proceeded to wear them around the clock – including after late nights at the club, when she’d bring friends back to her apartment and change out of her minidress into her custom-made silk two-pieces.
Soon, von Halle was barraged with orders from friends and acquaintances desperate for their own sets. It wasn’t long before she tapped into the opportunity and in 2011, founded her line of luxury silk pyjamas, which since its inception and subsequent success has been much more than an everyday sleepwear brand.
“We’re not a ‘sitting in bed drinking a cup of tea’ brand. We’re a ‘having a cigarette and a gin and tonic late at night’ kind of a brand,” she jokes.
Knowing von Halle’s background, it’s unsurprising that the founder tapped into a very much nascent shift. What she then considered an up-and-coming fad – wearing pyjamas not only out of the bedroom, but to a fête – has had such staying power that calling it a trend would be a misnomer.
