By Brian Kuske, founder and creative director, Ilhement
I once asked the concierge at The Ritz-Carlton if loungewear was “lobby approved.” He looked me up and down and said, “Yours is.” That’s when it clicked. What we wear when no one’s watching says just as much as what we wear out. Maybe even more. Ilhement was born in that space between public polish and private comfort, a brand that treats home wear with the same respect fashion usually reserves for tailoring.
But let’s be clear: this isn’t “relaxed luxury.” It’s sharper than that. With pleated boxer shorts as the quiet hero of the collection, Ilhement has found its sweet spot in resort wear for the culturally fluent, pieces that move effortlessly from suite to street, without needing to shout their value. It’s loungewear you’d wear to a dinner. Or to a hotel DJ set. Or just while checking in at a five-star hotel and not thinking twice about it.
Resort wear has always been a bit of a contradiction—leisure coded as luxury. Think spa robes, slippers, those canvas spa bags everyone steals (and let’s be honest, uses again). It’s an aesthetic born in privacy but designed for projection. Today, it’s having a cultural renaissance. As work, travel and life blur, resort wear has become the new uniform of fluid sophistication. And Ilhement sits right inside that niche, not chasing trends, but shaping a lifestyle where calm is the new status symbol.
The brand’s latest project pushes that idea even further: a series of live DJ sets recorded in hotel beds. The first one, shot at The Dolder Grand in Zurich, captures two DJs dressed in Ilhement loungewear playing deep, ambient house while sunk into cotton sheets. The lighting is low, the mood is soft, the energy is real. It’s hotel culture flipped into a cultural moment; sound, design and fabric converging in one scene.
Ilhement doesn’t try to sell an outfit. It sells a point of view. And in a landscape saturated with algorithm-driven “aesthetics,” that clarity is rare. The brand’s taste isn’t performative; it’s considered. It’s built slowly, with purpose. From custom-fitted loungewear made in Portugal to collaborations with names like IWC and NZZ, Ilhement stays relevant by staying rooted in context, not hype.
Every activation, whether a pop-up on Bahnhofstrasse or a curated dinner in the Alps, is designed to feel like you’ve entered a room where everyone gets it. No overexplaining. Just shared references, good sound and even better fabric. That’s the power of community built through taste, not algorithms.
So no, taste isn’t dead. It’s just a little quieter these days. It moves differently. Slower. More deliberately. It doesn’t scream in your feed, it whispers across hotel lobbies, private playlists and pleated boxer shorts.
If you know, you know.
