The designer Qantas pyjamas upgrading the business class experience

With a pair of blue pyjamas featuring a kangaroo, love heart and her logo, Australian designer Rebecca Vallance has joined the Qantas fashion family.

The pyjamas, with matching amenities kits, are branded with QF 3 and QF 4, the only flights by the national carrier distributing the Rebecca Vallance capsule range to business class customers for a limited time.

These flights relaunch the airline’s Sydney to New York route, starting June 14, which stops in Auckland rather than Los Angeles. Business class passengers in the new 787 Dreamliner aircraft can model the pyjamas with matching eye masks on the 17-hour leg from New Zealand to New York.

“I am obsessed with the Qantas pyjamas and have a drawer dedicated to them in my wardrobe,” Vallance says. “There’s nothing like that grey marle cotton, it feels so soft and comfortable, and I’m excited that we could do ours in French navy.”

Vallance, who has built an international reputation for sexy suiting and high-impact party dresses since launching her label in 2011, joins an elite roll call of frequent flyer favourites including Martin Grant, Peter Morrisey and Akira Isogawa in creating pyjamas for the airline. Paris-based Grant remains the designer of the Qantas staff uniforms.

“It’s my first time designing pyjamas,” says Vallance, who has dressed Priyanka Chopra, Paris Hilton and Eva Mendes. “It was great to work to a different creative brief. Flying the flag for Australian fashion on a global stage and partnering with the national carrier is an absolute honour.”

Like many travellers Vallance has resorted to wearing her pyjamas on the streets of New York, where her collection is stocked by Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom department stores. In her defence it was following a spray tan session.

“I always take mine off the flight, wear them during my trip away and bring them home with me.”