Despite still being a primetime staple on the network, Paige DeSorbo is so much more than a Bravo-lebrity. Yes, she was at the center of one of the biggest stories to come out of the Andy Cohen Extended Universe this year—but that was just one of the many, many headlines in her own life.

In the past twelve months, she filmed her seventh season of Summer House. She went on tour for “Giggly Squad,” the hit podcast she co-hosts with best friend Hannah Berner, selling out two nights at Radio City Music Hall; she published a book, How to Giggle with Berner, which became a New York Times best-seller; she co-anchored the official red carpet livestream of the Vanity Fair Oscar party; and she became a cat mom. 

So, while you can reliably find her on Bravo Wednesdays at 9 p.m. during the Summer House season, she’s the rare example of a reality star able to harness that exposure and solidify herself outside the show that got her in the pages of People. Some of it, like becoming an on-camera host, was part of the plan: Back when we were first introduced to DeSorbo as a 20-something fashion writer on season 3, she had ambitions to become a television correspondent. The rest of it, not so much. 

“Everything I've done in my career thus far—none of it did I think was going to happen,” DeSorbo tells InStyle. “I wasn't seven, being like, ‘One day I'll have a podcast.’ That wasn't a thing. I didn't think, ‘Oh, I want to be on the radio, writing a book, being on a reality TV show.’”

Once she started building her public profile, DeSorbo naturally considered how she could parlay that exposure into something bigger. It’s par for the course nowadays: Get on reality TV, start some sort of business. (So much of Summer House filming involves talk of Loverboy, the canned drinks brand started by cast member Kyle Cooke.) All through her 20s, DeSorbo says, “I would get really down on myself, like, ‘I'm running out of time—what if the show's not on next year? What if I'm not asked back and I haven't put anything out? I was on this show, and I fumbled. I couldn't even use it as a stepping stone.’” 

She was approached many times over the years about starting something, but nothing was ever quite right. “Skincare—love, it didn't feel like me. Makeup—love, it didn't feel like me,” she says. “Whenever I would see people on reality TV’s businesses, what made it good was, ‘Do I think of that product when I look at them?’ When you look at Bethenny Frankel, you still think Skinny Girl Margarita. Some reality TV people you see, and you're like, ‘Oh, they have a flip-flop line?’”

DeSorbo started thinking about what her “thing” could be in earnest two years ago. “Originally, I thought maybe it was just sets… Of course, I love a mini skirt with a little matching top, but the girls have those,” she says. “It was really more like, ‘What would my followers like?’ And I feel like we all align on staying in bed.”

Today, DeSorbo is introducing Daphne, a direct-to-consumer loungewear brand designed to be worn both in and out of bed, with prices ranging from $58 for a cami to $200 for a long-sleeved shirt and boxer set. (The line shares a name with her cat, but DeSorbo confirms that the cat came first.) “This is one thing where I can say it's a full-circle moment,” she says. “I'm so happy that I didn't do it sooner because I don't think it would've been as authentic as it is right now.” The collection is officially dropping June 10, and you can sign up to shop it first here.

It’s destiny fulfilled for one of the Summer House “bed bugs,” the nickname assigned by fans to DeSorbo and co-stars Ciara Miller and Amanda Batula because of how much of their screen time is spent in bed. (The trio has since fully leaned in, throwing a slumber-themed party dubbed “Snoozefest,” complete with custom sleep mask-inspired outfits.) In real life, she really does love hanging out in bed—being horizontal was a big part of her personal brand, long before Daphne—but when this personality trait was assigned to her by a Bravo edit, she didn’t feel great about it. 

“When it first came out, I was like, ‘Oh my God, everyone thinks I'm lazy. They think I don't work. They think I do nothing. I'm going to be a joke,’” she says. “I was upset.” DeSorbo soon realized it was better to be in on the joke: “I almost took back that power, like, ‘Oh, we can't really make fun of her because she claims that.’ It took me eight years for Summer House to take me seriously, but we got there.”

DeSorbo is working with Concept Brands, the Los Angeles-based incubator for creator-founded brands (such as Khalyla Kuhn’s Ebb Ocean Club), to bring Daphne to life. “I needed to hire people to do things that I don't know,” she says. “It felt like dating. I went into one meeting, and I was like, ‘Maybe I could see myself with them.’ Then I went into Concept and I was like, ‘This is what love feels like.’” The company provides shared services and key talent to help build out the business, such as Kyle DeFord, a longtime fashion retail professional and former GM of Jenna Lyons’ LoveSeen, who is now the CEO of Daphne. 

“Intention is key—this product category, specifically, is perfect for her vibe and what she loves,” DeFord says. “She brings this platform, enthusiasm, and amazing community of people. My background is more in the traditional retail world, so I understand the importance of how to build a brand that can stand alone and also the test of time, looking to the future and seeing what this thing could be, instead of the immediate opportunity that one could have.”

Daphne’s first hire was a lead designer, whom they found in Katie Serva, an alum of Proenza Schouler, Hatch, and Club Monaco. “She really took all of my visions to life,” DeSorbo says. For instance: “I love a sleep cardigan, but every one I have is too tight on the wrists—one of the notes was, if we make a cardigan, it has to be a bell sleeve.”

When building out the assortment, DeSorbo wanted it to appeal to a broad range of ages and stages of life: the girl in college, the young professional logging into Zoom for her first job, the working mom, and of course the reality star being filmed on a Sunday morning after a long Saturday night. “Everyone wears pajamas,” she says. Sleepwear is something everyone has or needs, regardless of style. As Desorbo puts it, you can “capture so many different demographics of fans that I have and give them one product that they could all love."

Daphne's colors are muted but versatile, the details thoughtful but not overly trendy, the silhouettes refined enough to be styled with regular clothes for a coffee run but comfy enough to nap in. Some pieces are inspired by items in DeSorbo’s own closet. Others draw from the people in her life: There’s only one item with a proper name, which Gigglers will clock immediately. 

“The Hannah tee was actually the first thing I came up with,” DeSorbo says. “During Covid, Hannah [Berner] wore the same T-shirt every single day, which is fine, but I remember being like, ‘When are you going to take that off?’ She's my one friend who just loves an oversized T-shirt—loves to sleep in an oversized T-shirt, gets ready in an oversized T-shirt… I was getting ready one day, and I was like, ‘I just need a big getting-ready T-shirt that's cute. Originally, I wanted to have stains on it, but the team was like, ‘Let's elevate it a little bit more.’”

DeSorbo’s been surprised by how many people have asked her, “How involved do you want to be?” when it comes to Daphne. “Well, it's my idea. I want to be fully involved in every single thing,” she replies. “I haven't missed a meeting. I'm in all the text threads. I'm the final decision-maker.” (DeFord confirms this: “There's no important meeting or decision or review or design that she doesn't have her hands all over.”)

The path here may not have been straightforward, but it’s where she always saw herself ending up. “I'm most excited, in my own head, to be like, ‘You made a fashion line. You said you wanted to do it, and now you're doing it,’” she says. “Even if Daphne was one drop and then the world fell apart and we never did it again—obviously, that won't happen—I’m  just proud of myself that I actually did it, and it's so much better than what I could have dreamt of and so much better than anything I would've put out years prior.”

She’s also only become more affirmed in her decision to wait until now, almost a decade after her first episode of Summer House aired, to do it: “There was a shift when I turned 30, for sure, where I was like, ‘And enough. I'm just as much an adult as anyone else in the room,’” she says. “I think I had to be a little bit more confident in myself, and ‘Giggly Squad’ gave me that. At one point, in my head, I was like, ‘I'm just a girl on reality TV. That’s how people know me.’ It wasn't until people were like, ‘Actually, I know you're from Giggly Squad.”

DeSorbo’s ready to fully dedicate herself to Daphne for the time being. (“Obviously, I'll die for Giggly Squad, so I think it'll be pretty split for the foreseeable future,” she assures.) And, of course, she’s planning her launch outfits. 

“I want to be that New York City summer girl who has these long shorts on, but then she has a heel and it's like, ‘Where's she going in that outfit?’” she says. “She's so mysterious. She could be coming from something really cool, or she's going to something really cool—you don't know. Also, I feel like I'm in my businesswoman era, so let's do an all-white power suit, mixing in Daphne pieces.”

Her Hamptons housemates are on the gifting list, so don’t be surprised if you see Bravo’s bedbugs in Daphne on future Summer House episodes. 

“Someone did say, ‘Are you going to come out with men's?’ I just don't care,” she says. “But maybe in a couple of years I'll care, and maybe then I will.”