FROM CIA OFFICER to PAJAMA MOGUL!

AFTER WORKING AS A COUNTERTERRORISM OPERATIVE, EMILY HIKADE CRAVED A LITTLE COMFORT. NOW HER LUXURY SLEEPWEAR BRAND HELPS CELEBS AND ROYALS RELAX IN STYLE

- JEFF NELSON

“I’ve been shot at,” says Emily Hikade, explaining life as a counter-terrorism case officer in the Central Intelligence Agency. “People would shoot rocket-propelled grenades at your vehicle.” Tasked with collecting information overseas, Hikade, 46, put her life on the line every day. “I’ve been so close to explosions that I’ve been knocked off my feet, where it rings in your ears, and everything goes into slow motion,” she continues. “I was invincible; I felt fearless before I had kids.”

Still, she had four boys while serving—Camden, now 15, Beckett, 12, Shaw, 10, and Gable, 7, with her husband, Christopher, 51, also a retired CIA officer—and by 2015 was longing for security and stability. “When you’re home, and you’re safe, that’s when you put on your pajamas,” she says. That idea inspired her luxury pajama brand Petite Plume, which today has reached almost $100 million in revenue and frequently sells out in Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. Her sleepwear is beloved by Hollywood royalty (customers include the Clooney twins) and actual royalty (Prince George memorably wore Petite Plume gingham pj’s to meet President Obama in 2016).

In 2018, after more than a decade with the CIA, Hikade turned in her badge. Today she relishes time in her home outside Chicago, where the family moved four years ago. “My oldest son said, ‘Mom, I don’t want to be the new kid anymore.’ He just started high school; it’s his 13th school,” Hikade says of settling down at last. “This is the longest time I’ve lived anywhere since high school. I read an article that said you get 18 summers with your kids, and that hit me. So I’m trying to make the most of our time.”