Elizabeth Robe from Certain Style

Today is one of those days when I really love my robe. It’s a fantastic day here in Florida, reasonable temperature, blue sky, fluffy clouds, but somehow Autumn (fall in American) is in the air, and I don’t want to give the impression that I’m sitting here typing in my robe, but the truth is I’d like to be. I’ve been feeling sniffly since yesterday, rotten headache, slightly itchy throat, you know the kind of thing. Not enough to go and lie groaning in bed, just enough to do everything badly.

And that was what got me thinking about robes. Women’s robes specifically. They seem to fulfill an interesting function, a little bit like soup, they’re somewhere to go when you don’t feel you can manage full blown clothes, which, I suppose is something to do with their origins. In the UK we don’t call them robes, they’re still dressing gowns, the gown you wear when you’re not dressed, so stop you from being undressed. It is actually quite an odd idea. For us though, the concept is simpler. The robe is what you put on when you haven’t had a chance to get dressed. You can answer the door in it, fetch the mail and deal with the housekeeper. But for people in public life the robe is more. If you live surrounded by assistants and other staff, a robe is essential. Pull it on, do up a couple of buttons and you’re not only decent you’re positively elegant. As Mrs Blair discovered that day she got the flowers and ended up on the front page of the newspapers in her nightgown…..

So that brings me back to my robe.  When I was a child my grandmother described the way she looked in her towelling dressing gown as ‘like a bag tied in the middle’. A vivid, if not flattering description of the shape. In the average robe there’s no shaping, no style, just a straight garment with a belt. It may cover, but it rarely flatters. And so when it came to Certain Style I wanted to do it a different way, to create robes that could be put on quickly, but would achieve the ‘instant elegance’ that the original ‘dressing gowns’ had been designed for. With Sheba, Elizabeth and Catherine the Great I think we’ve achieved that aim. Robes that can make the change from sex and sleep to sunlit success in one easy step, without sacrificing comfort in between.

What do you think is important in a robe? Is it comfort or elegance? Is there a place for both? Next year we plan a more conventional terry version, but we’ll be avoiding the ‘bag tied in the middle’ – tell us what you think is important in a robe!