Sleeping beauties

Dirt editors and friends present recommendations for sleepwear.

A diaphanous gossamer-thin nightgown is, along with perfume, my favorite kind of frivolous feminine luxury. When I wear one, ideally purchased from a shop in a zip code home to numerous white collar criminals—such as Peress on Madison Avenue or Kassatly’s in Jeffrey Epstein's Palm Beach—I am sleeping in a cloud, I am Elizabeth Taylor, I am a woman in a pre-Rapaelite painting with soft hair down to her waist, I am Laura Antonelli in L’Innocente, I am Priscilla Presley and also all of the dead teenagers from The Virgin Suicides.

My friend Sydney, who introduced me to the life of the nightgown after she took a revelatory trip to Rome with a vintage dealer, likes to go Diana Vreeland mode and talk about living with a sense of occasion. Why not make bedtime an occasion—wearing something tasteful to sleep sets a sort of intention for both how you'll slumber and how you'll wake up. A nice nightgown (if money was no object, I’d have a closetful from Celestine) or crisp pair of pajamas makes me feel fresh and peaceful in a way that my baggy “Smoking one cigarette brings you about 11 minutes closer to meeting the God the father almighty” t-shirt does not.

Nightgowns can seem like something for fussy old ladies, an artifact from a time when women wore makeup to bed so that their husbands wouldn't see them barefaced in the morning. But they're comfortable and often beautiful; and aren't they reflective of a classic kind of good taste, taste that shows respect for both the wearer and others around them? They are also very breathable for hot sleepers such as myself. I reached out to some sleepwear aficionados for recommendations, so that you can join us. Nightgowns are a great look for a cult. — Jocelyn Silver

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Sydney Smith, curator and Dirt contributor

Picture the most twisted and shameless thing you do alone in your apartment, and now picture yourself doing that thing in an ankle-length nightgown and marabou slippers. The nightie—be it cotton, silk, or satin, but never, EVER!!!!! polyester—is one of the most glamorous things a woman can wear. I generally don’t sleep in them, but instead I reserve them for days when the walls are closing in and I have to clear a stack of toast plates from my bedside table. Wearing a nightgown turns afternoons in your apartment into sumptuous little feasts.

My passion for the off-duty nightie may have something to do with my tenure after college at a pajama store called Sleepy Jones, where us shopgirls worked in full sets of button-up pajamas and ran around the streets of SoHo looking like we’d escaped a 5150. I sleep in stuff like that now, as I like a nice formal slumber, but my nightgowns are for living in. I have some full-length ones with puff sleeves for doing my taxes, some more risqué silk slips for eating three Cornettos in one sitting, a light white cotton one for cleaning the shower drain in a face mask, and an outrageously gorgeous raw silk one with a needle lace bust that I have never ever worn, given to me for my thirtieth birthday (in Paris!) by vintage icon and nightgown oracle Olivia of O. La Roche.

In regards to where you should look for your nightgowns, I suggest pretending it’s the year 1983. Hit a Bergdorf sale! Call a boutique’s landline. When you’re next on the Upper East Side, go to one of the frilly little shops on Lexington and ask the saleswoman for Celestine. You have never felt cotton like this in your life, and you have never needed to spend $400 on anything more desperately. Back in the 21st Century, try hopping around eBay, especially on different international domains: you can get a stunning ivory silk Frette chemise for less than your middlebrow roommate’s Alo playsuit. God, don’t you hate her!

Shawn Lakin, stylist

To me there’s no better feeling than the gentle luxury of freshly laundered sheets. In the eternal pursuit of this serotonin boost, I had an epiphany—what if you could WEAR this feeling all the time? And so led to my financially irresponsible mild obsession with Tekla pajamas. I love the funky flannel sets for winter month slumbers and the evergreen white top and bottom for sleep or everyday! Bonus points if you match your sheets to your pajamas for maximum cocoon effect.

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