I have worn a robe every morning for forty years and never given one a second thought. These are the first two I have ever written a letter about.
I have worn a robe every morning for forty years and never given one a second thought. These are the first two I have ever written a letter about.
Six things I have noticed since a November morning on the porch of a little bed and breakfast in Jefferson, from a woman who has made the coffee in her house for longer than she cares to count.
Peggy Dalton · Customer · Austin, Texas · 5 min read Let me tell you who is talking before I tell you anything else. I am Peggy, I am 63, and I live in Austin, Texas, with my husband Frank. I am up before he is every morning of the year, I make the coffee, I let the dog out when my daughter’s labrador is staying, and I stand at the kitchen window for ten minutes before anybody needs anything from me. Every one of those mornings starts the same way. I put on my robe.
The robes I am writing about are from Iris and Nora, a small boutique here in Austin that has been quietly dressing women like us for a few years now. One is the Delia, a bright red with soft teal, slate and coral flowers all over it and a teal band down the front and round the cuffs. The other is the Calista, a teal blue with big gold flowers and a gold band down the front. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
I first saw them at the start of November. Frank and I drove over to Jefferson for his birthday weekend and stayed at a little bed and breakfast with a wraparound porch. The first morning I came down early for coffee, and the lady from the room across the hall was already out on the porch swing with her mug, in that red robe, at half past six in the morning, looking like she had somewhere to be. I came down in Frank’s old flannel shirt over my nightgown, looking like I had slept in the car. The next morning she was out there again in the teal and gold one. So at the coffee urn I asked her, plainly. Her name is Geraldine, and she laughed and said, “Honey, I bought the red one for me and the blue one so I have something to wear while the red one is in the wash.” Read on.
Mine, the red one, on our own back porch with the first coffee. Frank took this. He says I have started getting up earlier.
Here is what forty years of robes has taught me. A woman my age gets offered two kinds. There is the big heavy one, the kind you get given for Christmas, that weighs about as much as a wet bath towel. In Texas you can wear that maybe three months of the year, and the rest of the time you are too hot in it before the coffee has finished dripping, so it ends up on the back of the bathroom door. And there is the thin little thing from the drugstore, in navy or a washed-out pink, that looks like what they hand you at the doctor’s office. So I wore the heavy one in January and Frank’s old shirts the rest of the year, and told myself nobody sees you first thing in the morning anyway.
Somebody always sees you first thing in the morning. And the first thing you put on every day ought to be something you are glad to be seen in.
The morning the blue one came. I opened it on the bed and put it straight on over my nightgown.
I ordered both of them on my phone right there on the porch swing, before Geraldine had finished her coffee, and they were waiting on the doorstep when we got home to Austin. I have worn one or the other every morning since. Going by these last weeks, it comes down to six things, and I will give them to you plainly.
Color you can see from the kitchen door
This is what stopped me on that porch. The Delia is a true, bright red, covered in soft teal and slate and coral flowers with little line-drawn flowers on top, and the teal band runs from the back of the neck all the way down the front to the hem, with the same band round the cuffs. The Calista is a teal blue with big gold flowers and navy leaves, and a gold band down the front and round the sleeves. The boutique says the prints bring a cheerful splash of color to your everyday routine, and I can tell you my everyday routine needed it. There are twenty prints in the collection, all different, and every one of them looks like you meant it.
On the back of the bedroom door, where the heavy old one used to hang.
My granddaughter came down for breakfast and said, Grandma, you look like a painting. I have been in navy robes since the seventies.
Juanita P., KarnackLight enough to keep on past breakfast
The boutique describes them as soft, lightweight and breathable, gentle from the first wear, and that is the part that matters most in Texas. I can make the coffee, fry the eggs, water the porch plants and sit down with the crossword and never once feel like taking it off. On the cool mornings I put it on over a long-sleeved nightgown. On the warm ones I wear it on its own. It is a robe I can wear twelve months of the year, which is nine more than the old one managed.
Second cup. The blue one on a warm morning, which in Austin is most of them.
I live in mine until noon on Saturdays. It is the first robe I have owned that I do not take off the minute the kitchen warms up.
Glenda R., UncertainA tie belt you can wrap your own way
They close with a tie belt, and the boutique says it lets you wrap it as loose or as snug as you like, so it flatters every shape. I like mine wrapped well over and tied snug at the front, so it stays closed when I bend down to the dog bowl. Frank’s sister likes hers loose. Same robe, both of us looked right. The wrap goes into a soft V at the neck with that wide band, which is a good deal more flattering on a woman of sixty-three than a drugstore collar.
I am not a small woman and robes usually gape on me. I wrap this one over and tie it and it stays put all morning.
Martha K., MarshallSleeves that stay out of the eggs
Both of mine have three-quarter kimono sleeves, wide and loose, that stop just below the elbow, and the boutique says they stay out of the way while you make breakfast or do your skincare. That is the truth. My old robe had long sleeves that went in the dishwater, the egg yolk and the biscuit dough, in that order, every morning. These do not. The teal blue one also has two patch pockets, which is where my reading glasses live now.
Over my chair in the front room. The pocket is where my reading glasses go.
I cook breakfast for my husband every day and I have ruined three robes on the stovetop. These sleeves never get near it.
Billie S., HallsvilleA length that covers you properly
The Calista is knee length and the Delia falls just below the knee, and both come in sizes M to XL. That is long enough that I can answer the door to the man reading the meter, walk out to the mailbox, or sit on a bed and breakfast porch swing with strangers, and feel decent doing it. It is not dragging on the floor, and it is not short. When my sister Sue stays over, I come out to the kitchen in it without a second thought, which I could not have said about Frank’s old shirts.
We had a houseful at Thanksgiving and I was not embarrassed once to be the first one up making coffee. It covers you, and it looks nice doing it.
Rosalee T., Ore CityA Christmas present she will wear every single day
The boutique calls them a thoughtful present for birthdays, Mother’s Day or Christmas, and a treat she will reach for daily, and I believe that is the whole point. Most presents a woman our age gets go in a drawer. A robe gets worn three hundred and sixty-five mornings a year. I have already put one aside for my sister Sue for Christmas, a purple one, and I have told my daughter which one I would like, in case anybody asks. Geraldine, for the record, now owns three.
Both of mine, the red and the blue. I wear whichever one is not in the wash.
Bought one for my mother and one for myself. She calls me every morning and tells me she has it on.
Inez W., LindenThe Delia and the Calista, against what used to hang on my bathroom door
You can keep wearing the heavy old robe three months a year and your husband’s shirts the other nine, like I did. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Heavy as a wet bath towel
Too hot before the coffee was made
Navy, or washed-out pink
Long sleeves in the dishwater
Or a thin thing like a doctor’s office gown
Soft and lightweight, all year round
Prints with real color in them
Tie belt, loose or snug as you like
Three-quarter sleeves that stay clear
A length you can answer the door in
About the price
Each robe is $65.95, and it was $132.00. Every print in the collection is the same price, and every one is half what it was. I will be honest, when I saw that I read the whole page twice looking for the catch. I have not found one. They came with free shipping, they looked like the pictures, and they went straight on.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these come in small runs, and the most popular prints go first, mostly before Christmas. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that the heavy robe I wore three months a year for twelve years cost about the same, and this is the one I actually wear every day. So it was an easy yes. Twice.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real women rather than robots. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
If the first thing you put on every morning is something you would hide if the doorbell rang, and you have family coming this Christmas, this is where I would start. Take a look before the print you want sells through, because once this stock is gone, it is gone. And if you are ever on a bed and breakfast porch in Jefferson at half past six and you see two grandmothers in bright robes on the swing, one of them is Geraldine, and the other one is me.
Peggy
THE COLORFUL BATHROBE COLLECTION
- 20 prints, from the red Delia to the teal and gold Calista
- Soft, lightweight and breathable
- Kimono style with a V neck lapel and tie belt
- Three-quarter kimono sleeves
- Sizes M to XL
- Free shipping
Sale on now, half off. Once this stock is gone, it is gone.