As the line between public and private lives blur, nighties are increasingly being worn as dresses for a look that is intimate and ethereal

Despite the implication that nightwear is to be worn after dark in the privacy of one’s home, pyjamas – and, this year, nighties – have a habit of making their way out of the bedroom and onto the catwalk with some regularity.

This summer has been dominated by the Laura Ashley look: prairie dresses with frill detailing and ditsy prints, long but structured. As the warmer weather draws to a close, however, 2019’s interpretation of the maxi dress has morphed into something a little lighter, looser and more relaxed: the kind of dress you could sleep in.

Gwyneth Paltrow was an early adopter of the fashion nightie, wearing a sheer yellow pleated Chloé gown with high-neck ruching to the Met Gala in May. Since then, the singer Selena Gomez posted a picture on Instagram of herself wearing a billowing white nightie-esque dress to mark her 27th birthday, and the model Alessandra Ambrosio wore a tiered pastel pink nightie-inspired dress to lunch in LA.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Selena Gomez on Instagram, looking ready for a good night’s sleep. Photograph: Instagram/selenagomez

This is a marked change from the slip-style nightdresses that received a grungy daywear makeover circa 2016. This time around, nightie dresses are cotton-based and oversized, rather than strappy with lace detailing. On the catwalk, this has translated to pastel pink printed shirt dresses at Escada, as well as ribbon nick ties on chiffon maxis at Rodarte. At Chanel, a long, striped, lemon dress was paired with a matching layer that resembled a bed jacket.

Susanna Cordner, a senior research fellow at the London College of Fashion, sees the shift to nighties as “an extension of the wider trend for demure or loose and long dresses … they suggest the body whilst building away from it at the same time. The looks for this trend are relatives of the teagowns, negligees and peignoirs of the past.”

On the high street, Topshop have included smock-style maxi dresses within their boutique collection and Zara’s rustic dress with a ruffle trim is one of many nightgown-like options.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A model on the Chanel catwalk in Paris in October 2018. Photograph: Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Italian label Loretta Caponi recently launched their first Resort collection – including several day dresses inspired by the handmade nightgowns that first propelled the brand to prominence. Meanwhile, an “Amazon nightgown” was described as going viral on Instagram after spawning its own hashtag, with fans praising its thrifty pricetag (under £25), lightweight feel and bohemian vibe.

Pyjamas-as-daywear have also made a return to the fashion limelight of late, albeit with a 2019 twist. Show-goers at August’s Copenhagen fashion week paired satin pyjama bottoms with playful sweaters and tucked printed PJs into cowboy boots for a look that was less “relaxed luxe” and more “morning walk to the showers at Glastonbury”.

“Nightwear as daywear is an enduring trend,” says Cordner. “It’s less explicit, or perhaps more subtle, than underwear as outerwear, and it carries with it the impression that there’s a casualness and comfort to the clothes being worn – although this isn’t always actually the case. Alongside that implied casualness, there’s also still something suggestively intimate about them.”

The trend for nightgowns – not a particularly modern form of nightwear – also reflects fashion’s ongoing fixation with 70s style. Bootcut jeans, pussy-bow blouses and knee-high boots have all made their way into the fashion mainstream alongside floral maxi dresses, so it follows that retro smock-style nightwear should be repurposed as contemporary daywear.

“Sleepwear as daywear is challenging one of the core foundations of traditional dress etiquette,” says Elisabeth Murray, a fashion and textiles curator at the V&A. “It makes the designs inherently rebellious and playful. Regard for comfort is something we’ve also seen a lot of in the past decade, with the rise of athleisure and loungewear – in many ways, sleepwear as daywear is a logical extension of this.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rustic dress with ruffle trim, was £29.99, now £19.99, Zara. Photograph: Publicity Image

Cordner agrees that there is a rule-breaking element to stepping out in sleepwear.

“Early pyjama dressing was a subversive but still acceptable way for women to wear trousers,” she says. “When early examples turn up in Vogue in the 1910s and 1920s, they were depicted as something novel and borrowed, from men’s wardrobes or from eastern cultures. I think we carry some of that into the psychology of wearing them today. ”

Now, perhaps, we have come full circle, with the ultra-feminine, floaty nightgown a more rebellious choice than the almost formal look of a 1920s-style silk pyjama suit.

“They imply a nonchalance, a blurring of private and public life,” says Cordner, “while still looking really pulled together.”