Sustainable sleepwear: the brands making eco-friendly PJs

Sleeping with a clear conscience starts here, says Chloe Street
Underprotection
Chloe Street17 November 2020

We spend a third of our life sleeping and, in the midst of a winter lockdown, I’ll hazard it is more. 

There has therefore never been a better time to invest in some really great jammies. But what if they could be good for the planet too? There are a whole host of small brands out there making socially conscious, earth-friendly nightwear that know a good sleep starts with peace of mind. Here’s how to snooze sustainably.

Sustainable silks

Mulberry silk pyjamas- Japiur Gold, £220, The Ethical Silk Company
Dara Munnis for The Ethical Silk Company

Traditional silk is made by boiling silk worms alive to separate them from their silky cocoons. For some, this just won’t do.

Mulberry silk is a kinder alternative, made by waiting for the worms to emerge naturally (as moths) before gathering their cocoons to spin silk thread. The London-based Ethical Silk Company makes gorgeous nightwear from Indian mulberry silk that’s hand printed in Jaipur using a traditional Indian block printing technique (£220 for a set, theethicalsilkcompany.co.uk).

Or you can swerve silk altogether in favour of a genius cruelty-free copycat product made from the pulp of bamboo grass. Bamboo “silk” is incredibly soft with a texture much like the real thing. It’s 100 per cent biodegradable, naturally hypoallergenic and antibacterial, and its cross-sectional fibres make it brilliantly temperature regulating. The best part? Unlike silk, it’s fully machine washable. London label Nightire specialises in bamboo “silk” PJs. Its new emerald green beautiful bodies set (£82, nightire.com) is printed with an illustration from artist Sarah Donde; a must for the Anissa Kermiche vase fan club.

Udaipur ‘silk’ set, £160, Lunaandnoon.com

British label Luna and Noon meanwhile takes a different approach: creating its vegan “silk” from 100 per cent Cupro, a waste product of cotton production that looks and feels like silk, and breathes and regulates temperature like cotton. Try the all-white Udaipur set for ultra Saturday brunch-at-home glamour (£160, lunaandnoon.com).

 

Conscious cotton

Wrap set, £225, General Sleep, reve-en-vert.com

When buying cotton PJs, look for companies that use fair trade-certified organic cotton, which ensures living wages and workers rights for those at the far end of the supply chain. London label People Tree — an old timer on the sustainable fashion scene, founded in 1991 — not only uses 100 per cent fair trade cotton, but they also have a closed-loop system to minimise the amount of water required for production.

The cowboy ‘silk’ set, £150, Charlotte Dunn

General Sleep is an chic new nightwear line from New Zealand that uses an organic cotton linen blend to make understated PJ sets made for minimalists (wrap set, £225, reve-en-vert.com) while London label Billy Sleeps has a gorgeous organic cotton set in olive green with pink piping (£150, wolfandbadger.com) with a delicious Sixties feel. 

Charlotte Dunn makes pyjama sets from a bamboo and organic cotton blend in her studio in London — the cactus-print cowboy set (£150, charlottedunndesign.com) is top of my Christmas list.

Pyjama protests

C St Quinton Safari pyjamas
C St Quinton

In addition to environmentally friendly materials, there are several socially conscious sleepwear labels ploughing some of their profits back into good causes. Pour Les Femmes, co-founded by actress Robin Wright, sells organic cotton nightwear that supports charitable organisations helping women in conflict regions around the world, giving them the opportunity to learn a skilled trade and therefore provide for their families. 

While London label C St Quinton wants you to save the white rhino while you sleep, by purchasing their beautiful mandarin-collared organic fair trade cotton PJs, which donate a portion of sales to a charity called Save the Waterberg Rhino

Dumb Blonde Club’s handmade PJs
Dumb Blonde Club

Chloe Daniel, founder of handmade clothing company Dumb Blonde Club, makes all her mailing bags of recycled postal waste and donates all the scrap fabrics from her pyjamas to a handmade accessories business Tinkerbells so you’ll be supporting the planet and two small business owners in one. 

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in