When Francesca Ruffini launched For Restless Sleepers nearly 11 years ago, her pajama-only proposition was greeted with polite curiosity, and more than a little perplexity. The idea of elegant, loose-fitting loungewear, boldly printed yet impeccably sleek, felt oddly out of step with the fashion mood of the moment. “People thought I was crazy,” she recalled.
Crazy, it turns out, like a fox. The concept soon took off, and Ruffini has spent the years since riffing on her original idea, dialing up the prints and expanding the silhouettes into shapes that nod to loungewear but wander far from its initial blueprint. This season, however, she decided to rewind. “I wanted to go back to where I started,” she said. “There are too many copycats out there. I wanted to reclaim my space, and redefine my designs.”
Ruffini, in essence, designs for an audience of one: herself. She has little patience for anything constrictive; corsetry and va-va-voom bodycon are not in her vocabulary. In summer, she lives in pajamas; come winter, she layers them under plush wrap coats or generously cut piuminos. “I believe that the simpler you dress, the more your true colors shine through,” she declared, neatly summing up her philosophy.
For fall, she refined the jacket-and-trousers formula that underpins her brand’s easy sophistication, streamlining it even further. The jacket morphed into a billowy, mannish shirt, worn with palazzo pants edged in tuxedo-style piping. Her signature prints, too, took a softer turn: subtler, more restrained, and inspired by the cravatteria motifs of men’s robe de chambres.
Another, more intimate thread of inspiration emerged from the rediscovery of her grandmother’s nightgowns, delicately embroidered by nuns with bespoke monograms and once repurposed as beach slip dresses. Ruffini echoed their nuances: folded sides gave fluidity to languid, elongated tunics, while the sensuality of silk’s aplomb was recreated in cupro, a natural fabric prized for its smoothness and lustrous sheen.
In Ruffini’s world, elegance has nothing to do with dressing en travesti for someone else’s gaze. “When you dress like yourself, you think more clearly, you have more strength of character. You need the conviction to be who you are,” she said. Hard to argue with that, especially when the clothes make such a compelling case.