Bridal Robe by Certain Style

It’s spring again and time for bridal season. You might imagine that at Certain Style we’d be wading in white chiffon and lace from the little wisps of nothing ordered by brides. Actually, no. We love brides and are happy to make whatever they want, but recently Bridal nightgowns and robes have become a lot more interesting.

Even weddings are affected by the state of the economy. While brides may spend a fortune on their wedding gown and wear it only once, their bridal nightgown is a different story. The nighttime ensemble a bride chooses for her honeymoon can be worn many times. It can easily be a more lasting memento of the wedding than the dress itself, if chosen well.

For most brides the whole of the wedding day is the realization of a fantasy, so why not use sleepwear to extend the romantic fantasy of a wedding to cover the honeymoon and beyond?  Actually it’s quite difficult to do. When you talk about ‘fantasy’ and nightwear in the same sentence, it all seems to be about men.  Fantasy nightgown? No. Think fantasy costume, french maids, schoolgirls etc.   Now there’s nothing wrong with indulging male fantasy (which is usually what it is) but what about female fantasy? Sadly many brides choose honeymoon nightgowns that end up stuffed at the back of a drawer, usually because their owners feel embarrassed or uncomfortable when wearing them. But there’s no need.

Where sex is power, romance is vulnerability. The ideal marriage is of course a mixture of both; interestingly we find that it’s the second time brides who come to us looking for a romantic nightgown, but this could well be because second time brides are often a little older, and as a result more in touch with themselves. As one lady put it to me the other day, ‘Feeling romantic is

Empire Style silk nightgown, designed for a bride and inspired by the Empress Josephine.

what makes me feel really sexy’.   We’ve been asked for is a regency style nightgown for a bride who had found her Mr Darcy, and a fur trimmed robe for a fan of Anna Karenina.  Many tall women long for the romance of a full length nightgown as those in the shops only reach mid-calf. Despite our best efforts, we’ve not been able to distill romance into a single nightgown design, but then, would we want to?

What is the ideal bridal nightgown? It’s all to do with the way you want to feel. If your romantic fantasy is very ‘Gone With The Wind’, look for a nightgown and robe in the great Gothic style, Scarlet really new how to wear a robe! If you are more tended to ‘Pride and Prejudice‘ something in silk with a high waist and small cap sleeves will give you that ‘waiting for Mr Darcy’ feeling, and if Gothic romance is your thing, a full length, handkerchief linen chemise with a deep neckline, long sleeves and lavish lace trim should do the job admirably. Brocade, trimmed with frills and lace can be very regal depending on the style, while silk velvet cut with wide medieval sleeves and a beautiful trim will make you feel like a character in the ‘Lord of The Rings’ . The fantasy really doesn’t have to stop with the dress and you’ll wear the nightgown and robe far more often!

I love my job because every garment we make is unique, just like the woman who eventually wears it. Keeping romance alive is a major part of making a marriage successful. I can’t think of many things more important that that.

Related articles

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I went to order a gift for a friend the other day and was really surprised at the cost. The reason? His birthday is the 14th of February, and I had forgotten about Valentines day. Apparently the world is so short of certain items around the middle of February that the prices just HAVE to go up. Really? I had the pleasure of working with a lovely lady who owned a Florists in Cookham, one of those picture book villages dotted around Berkshire in England. She worked very hard at Valentines, often having to go through the night to be sure all her orders were ready for the next day, so perhaps she was justified in charging a little more, but when I try to order red silk for nightgowns and am told that red is ‘more expensive at this time of year’ I begin to feel that the price has gone up not because it must, but because it can. Valentines has  got to a point where surely the necessity of giving removes most of the romance.

So this year, I’m concentrating on the rest of the year. Everyone needs more romance in their lives, but not just in February.

What we are doing this year:

Prices for nightgowns will be the same for Valentines as they are the rest of the year.

All profits from the sale of our valentines nightgowns in January will be donated to Doctors Without Borders in honor of the victims of the Haiti Earthquake.

What we are doing from now on: Profits from all red and pink nightgowns sold in January every year will be donated to Charity.

Every 10th of the month we will have a special offer to help you celebrate an ‘unvalentines’ day at any time of the year.

We will introduce our own range of romance cards – designed to say ‘I love you’ to her or to him, at any time of year.

Related articles

• Five Great Ways to Create Romance for Valentine’s Day – Keep the Fires Burning in Your Relationship (infopirate.org)
• Valentine’s Day Romance (infopirate.org)
• Friday Fiction: Space (oneminutewriter.blogspot.com)
• The Best Things in Life Aren’t Things (luxury-nightwear.com)