The choice, must of course be Earl Grey, drunk in the English fashion with sugar to taste and a splash of milk. (though with tea with honey and lemon might also be possible).  Imagine my joy then when I found the perfect tea pot, the ideal accompaniment not only for my morning cup of Earl Grey, but for my robe.  Happy Aladdin is only one an amazing range of stunning hand blown glass teapots from french tea specialist Mariage Freres. The names, as well as the designs and descriptions, and completely irresistible, and an absolute must have for the serious robe owner!

There are no women who don’t like flowers, but remember her prestige is at stake. It’s great to send flowers to her at the office, but not if you send something small. If the lady in your life is the CEO she won’t appreciate getting a single rose if her secretary regularly receives 2 dozen. The best idea here is to find out what she likes and stick to that, or find something unusual which won’t invite a great deal of comparison.  Best of all send a flower which has some personal meaning to you both, for example I don’t care for carnations, but if my husband send me a bouquet of white carnations I’d love it because it would remind me of the wedding lei he bought me on our honeymoon in Hawaii.  If you don’t know her well you might find out the official flower of the state she comes from and send her that – again it’s something personal and shows you went to a little trouble rather than just choosing the first thing you saw on the screen.

Flowers , given properly, are very romantic, but remember that they don’t last. Roses, especially, can be very disappointing, lasting only a few days, though there are some companies that offer unusual rose arrangements which make quite a statement.

Perfume can also be a problem. There are simply too many to choose from and choice is a very personal thing.  The simplest thing to do here is either just to buy a lovely set of which ever perfume she currently favors, or to consult with the sephora fragrance finder.  The fragrance finder uses the fragrance she wears now to predict others she will like, and people say it is pretty reliable. Be aware the every persons skin reacts slightly differently with scent, what smells very very good on one woman, might smell ghastly on the next. My view is that unless you know her well and are buying something you know she has tried and wants, give perfume a miss.

Jewels are a good choice, but can be expensive.  Buying costume jewelry is fine when you are in a long term relationship, but it’s not the right message for someone you’ve recently met and want to impress.   Good jewelry tends to be expensive, but there are items which are a safe bet.  Every women needs a string of pearls and few women will say no to another, even if she already owns one.  Styles are always changing as are colors. A single strand of pearls 18 to 20 inches in a medium size is ideal for most women, but if you’re feeling extravagant, a multistrand twisted necklace is a fabulous gift. But beware of size. We forget the jewelry has sizes; the 16 inch strands used for necklaces these days will strangle a lot of women and cause a great deal of expense (having it made bigger) or disappointment if that isn’t possible.

Beautiful lingerie and sleepwear are items most men want to buy for their wives and girlfriends, but fail to, either because they don’t know where to find them, or they are looking for the wrong thing.

For women sleepwear is not just about sex. Sleepwear is about romance. Most women feel romantic in a long flowing nightgown.  Do you know what her fantasies are? Does she have a yen for Mr Darcy? If so a regency style nightgown would be a good idea. Feed her fantasies and it is far more likely that she’ll feed yours! Does she believe you when you say she has fabulous legs? If so a babydoll style might be ideal. If she works hard all day some lounging pajamas are a great way to help her change rolls, from workaholic woman to personal playmate.

Lingerie and sleepwear sizes can be a problem. The designer companies rarely sell anything above a size 12 or 14, and since the average american woman falls outside that range it’s likely that they don’t sell the right size for the woman in your life.

In that case use a made to measure service. There’s no need to worry about her size, you can add a touch of mystery and romance to your gift giving by becoming a ‘secret admirer’

Whichever gift you choose, women love to see their gifts well wrapped.  Use a lovely gift box, add paper and a bow, or at the least wrap in tissue and put it in a decorative  present bag.

If it’s any consolation,  your problem isn’t nearly as bad as hers, most women have absolutely no clue what to buy for the man in their lives!  You could always solve her problem by  suggesting she buy herself lingerie, as a present to you!

I was expecting great fruit, after all, Florida is the orange and grapefruit centre of the world, but I didn’t expect the onions.  The red onions which are readily available here are potent but delightfully sweet, as well as being extremely good nutritionally. This, I must say is not always top of my list when it comes to reasons to eat something, but if something tastes terrific AND is good for you then you’d really have to be an idiot to turn it down.

So here’s the recipe for ‘sleepwear salad’ – tastes equally good whether you’re wearing a nightgown, pajamas or a robe!

• 1 cup pineapple chopped
• 1 cup red onion chopped
• 3 tablespoons of blue cheese dressing

Mix together and enjoy! (Variations  – add parmesan cheese)

Makes a great breakfast or lunch and tastes great as a salad with dinner.

What you eat in your nightgown?

14 Saville Row, London, W1

I’ve no idea whether the Queen’s designer ever created nightgowns for her Majesty, but I am sure that if he had, they would have been very stylish. Not chic you understand because Hardy Amies despised chic as being too much of the present, whereas, as we all know, style is eternal.

An intelligence office during World War II, Hardy Amies set up shop in post war Britian chosing an uninhabitable mansion in Saville Row (where else?) where Sheridan had once lived.  His early financial backers included Virginia Cherrill (once married to Cary Grant) and despite the post war regulation of, for example, the number of pleats on a skirt, built a reputation which lead to him becoming  designer to Princess Elizabeth, later Her Majesty the Queen.  He is said to have disliked the mini skirt, so it’s difficult to imagine what he would have though of grunge.

Why do I mention this? Anyone interested in fashion will be fascinated by the Hardy Amies archive, which has been opened at 14 Saville Row in London, to celebrate what would have been Amies’ 100th birthday. Entrance is free, but by appointment only.

I thought I’d play it safe and just go for the most expensive, after all, you get what you pay for. At $215,000 for the bottle (yes, that’s two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars) Imperial Majesty should be a safe bet. It’s a limited edition,  and it’s a big bottle (16.9 ounces) but the major value is actually in the bottle, made from baccarat crystal, and the 5 carat diamond in the 18 carat gold collar of the bottle. Given that, and the fact that there are actually 10 bottles in existence (not excluisve enough), I think I’ll pass.

My actual favourite (in case anyone is reading this who really wants to buy me some, hint hint) is Creed’s Jasmin Imperatrice Eugenie, and it’s a snip at only $320 a bottle.

I have a friend called Andy who makes the best breakfast in the world – the perfect thing to eat while wearing a luxury nightgown! There’s always bacon and usually superb sausage ( think he gets them from a market near Covent garden) but actually the thing I miss most about eating an Andy cooked breakfast is the mushrooms, so when I was browsing a list of ‘ideal presents for him’ recently this bag  caught my eye.  Specially designed for a the mushroom picker, it has four pockets to store different types of mushroom AND a bag. What is this second bag for? Well to store the first bag in of course! (Yes, my handbags all come in ‘other’ bags too, but this is a $17 dollar nylon mushroom bag, not Fendi’s latest creation)

Of course you might enjoy a spot of caviar for breakfast (I’d say it depends very much on the season) and if so, we all know there is nothing worse than warm caviar, so you might be intested in this caviar bowl at only $45 (#27)  which holds plenty of ice, but don’t forget the spoon which is very important. If you can tell your Osetra from your Sevruga then maybe something a little more ostentatious? How about the bowl in the picture? It comes in blue, green,clear, aqua and red. I think I’ll have the red one, to go with my robe.  How much does it cost? You know what they say, if you have to ask …..

(I just bookmarked the page on delicious, and it said there were ‘no recommended tags for caviar bowls. What is the world coming to?)

Caviar Bowl from Varang

Luxury Yachts

Now that everyone, their next door neighbors, their best friends and their cats have what at least look like Louis Vuitton luggage, how can you transport your luxury sleepwear?

There’s something to be said for having a wardrobe waiting for you at each locale, and don’t get me wrong we’d love to help you build it, but we know our clients love their nightgowns and robes so much they don’t want to be parted from them, so how do you get them from place to place?

Obviously one must be careful about one’s luggage, but here’s a company whose customization may fit the bill. T.T. Trunks provide luxurious personalized and specialized luggage of several kinds, from a complete mini bar to a vanity. Of course you may find that having perfect luggage gives you a yen to travel, in which case there can be no better way to see the world than luxury yacht. Check out project 1011 which is said to include (amongst a great deal) an underwater observation chamber, a mini submarine and an  indoor swimming pool.

Well, now I know what I want for Christmas.

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!