When J.Crew’s Jenna Lyons spotted her head of womenswear, Somsack Sikhounmuong, wearing a tapestry-inspired print scarf from the British silk tie and pocket square specialist Drake’s, she saw a match made in fashion heaven. Soon after, Sikhounmuong contacted Drake's to suggest a collaboration using some of their vast print archive of over 2,000 designs. “We immediately fell in love and boy, did we fall hard,” Sikhounmuong tells us. 

Drake’s was started in 1977 by east London haberdasherer Michael Drake. It was the gentlemen’s outfitter’s first venture into womenswear but we think it’s a collaboration that really works – combining J.Crew's modernity with the heritage prints of Drake's including tigers, unicorns and exotic birds of paradise.

Sikhounmuong chose three print designs: Bird of Paradise, Bengal Tiger, and Midnight Unicorn. “The prints were definitely the focus of the collection,” he says. “Having the collection centered around pajamas allowed the prints to shine with a bit of humor and irony [two things we are big fans of at J.Crew]. The idea of wearing these very decadent tigers and pheasants to bed is pretty glamorous, not to much to mention down right cool.” Did anyone say pajama party?

For the full pajama sets, Sikhounmuong’s advises putting your hair up in a casual topknot and letting the patterns take center-stage. We can imagine ourselves wearing this outfit on a flight and heading from the airport to dinner. And then straight to bed!

Although everything made a bold statement, we loved that they could be mixed and matched and worn in a multitude of ways. Not brave enough to go for the head-to-toe look? Grab a scarf and tie it around your hair or wrist, or opt for the print ballerinas. “For the team and me, there needed to be an old school sensibility to the collection,” says Sikhounmuong. We wanted everything to be an investment piece… classic and not fussy.”  We’ll take one in every colourway please.

The J.Crew x Drake's collaboration is available on www.jcrew.com.