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There’s change afoot in the hypebeast universe. In recent months, streetwear fans have dressed up the sweatpant and salivated over sports loafers. Now, they are seeking to elevate the place where they catch some Zs, too.
We’re talking lightweight short and shirt sets from Denmark’s Tekla Fabrics, crafted from poplin cotton and in colours ranging from deep lingonberry to conifer green, for a cool €300. Or Tencel™ fitted linen sheets from LA brand Parachute, who recently collaborated with rapper Tyler, the Creator’s brand Le Fleur on a range of sleep products. Or sleep sets from Copenhagen design company Hay, perhaps better known for lamps and furniture, which launched their outline bedding range in 2023, selling bed covers for over €200.
Much like the array of deluxe sportswear brands that popped up post-pandemic to provide a new outlet for premium shoppers looking to establish a sense of style and comfort, the business of sleeping in style has prompted a selection of brands — both heritage and contemporary — to completely refresh everyday bedroom items with elevated quality and more interesting colours.
It’s a growing market. Selfridges reports a 65 per cent increase in stocking luxury sleepwear and bedding ranges in 2024, compared with 2023, with more planned for later this year.
Arguably, it’s Tekla that sits atop the rising trend, with momentum in the UK, the US, Japan and South Korea. Tekla co-founder and managing director Kristoffer Juhl says this is “vital to their growth”, reporting the brand grew 30 per cent last year. Launched in 2017, Tekla started out with a focus on home textiles; but now, poplin pyjamas represent 30 per cent of the business. Boasting collaborations with Stüssy (sheets, PJs and towels) and Birkenstock (slippers and PJs), it straddles both lifestyle and fashion categories. It’s this versatility that Mason Moore, lifestyle buyer for East London streetwear phenomenon Goodhood, believes contributes to its roaring success.
“You can wear [Tekla] out and about. Particularly in Copenhagen, I see countless people wearing [the brand] out and styling it in quite a preppy way,” says Moore. Increasingly, consumers are wearing long-sleeve shirts with tiny Tekla shorts out of the house. Something confirmed by Moore: “I wouldn’t bat an eyelid about spending £80 on some Tekla shorts because I know I can wear them around the house, I can wear them in bed and then in summer I know I can take them to the beach.”
Luxury sleepwear’s rise can be credited in part to the transformation of every bedroom into an office-space-slash-wellness-studio during the pandemic. But there’s more to bedcore’s global expansion than simply staying indoors. It’s about fashion and meaning; colour and cool; and the generational need to stylistically create something new.
Eleanor Gregory, home buying manager at Selfridges, credits premium sleepwear’s rise as a pushback against just a handful of brands dominating the market for decades with traditional white sheets. Clearly, consumers wanted change. “New creative brands looking to reinvent this category [are] giving people reason to pause and rethink their next purchase,” Gregory says. “[Take] brands such as [Swedish bedwear brand] Magniberg, which in our first meeting posed the question: ‘Why don’t we dress our beds with the same care we dress ourselves?’” Magniberg held a showroom during Copenhagen Fashion Week this season, alongside the city’s many pure-play fashion brands, to court new buyers.
For Moore, the introduction of luxury sleepwear links with the Goodhood audience’s current wants and needs. “We have an affluent creative customer who probably earns a decent amount of income, but like most of us in our millennial era, is unable to afford a home.” Enter: homeware products that make your rented flat feel a little more luxurious. Moore likens sleepwear’s appeal to other products. “We saw a rise in portable lighting being something that younger customers were buying into. They might spend £200 to £300 on a lamp, but it means every time they move flat, they’ll bring it with them. [Tekla and luxury sleepwear brands are] in line with those products.”
Luxury fashion brands have chucked on their slippers and settled down to snooze, too. Liberty London collaborated on a now-sought-after pyjama link-up with workwear favourite Carhart in 2022. That same year, French luxury label Jacquemus turned to Tekla for a collaboration on a range of bedspreads and sleepwear. And more recently, the Danish label released a range of premium blankets inspired by modernist architect Le Corbusier — at a luxury-leaning £600-plus price point.
At the higher end of the scale are newer brands such as Antwerp-based mother-and-daughter duo Bernadette. Launched in 2018, Bernadette stock fine-silk floral bedtime fits for close to €700, and are sold by retailers like Harvey Nichols. Slow and ethically produced bedwear label Issoir has a similarly silky selection of nightwear at similar price points, with their kaftan loungewear previously stocked at Harrods via the multi-brand’s My Wardrobe HQ rental service. There’s also scores of premium players, including ‘cottagecore’, direct-to-consumer brand Piglet in Bed and fashion brand Rixo, which launched its vintage-inspired sleepwear in 2020.
Gregory believes the appeal of brands like Tekla comes from “weaving creativity and responsibility into everything they do”. See, for example, their recent capsule with musician Jamie xx on a range of products promoting the artist’s new album — all of which were created with 100 per cent organic Oeko-Tex-certified cotton, a standard for items in Tekla’s core range. Gregory adds: “[Tekla] go beyond the end product and are often collaborating with architects, musicians, sponsoring artists and donating back to the local community in Copenhagen.”
Tekla co-founder Juhl says their approach all goes back to customer demand for “high-quality pieces produced responsibly”. And the brand continues to develop new products and fabrics to elevate the offering and respond to customer demand. Their latest is a sateen set created using 100 per cent long-fibre cotton, “a hard-to-source fibre that ensures greater longevity and a softer finish… reflecting the brand’s commitment to uncompromising quality and the continuous enhancement of the products”.
Moore draws back to Goodhood’s slogan as a catalyst for the business stocking sleepwear brands. “Our slogan is: ‘It’s a lifestyle, baby,’” says Moore. “Sleep and moments of rest and calm and lounging are key parts of that.” Plus, as the medical imperative to get your full eight hours continues to perforate through modern culture, it’s through sleep that we can look to the future.
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