Best Betts: Your summer shroud

Below is my August/September Critic style column (the magazine spawns a bumper issue so its staff can go on hols, itself the dizzy height of chic). In it, I discuss my need for a shroud, as heatwave slams into heatwave this long, hot, sweaty summer. For, as previously discussed, I am a vampire with Neanderthal DNA, built only for the cold. And I demand an outfit in which I will not expire, nor yet perish of unBettsness.

Talking of which, this morning - knowing it would later be hitting 35 degrees - I put on a bright blue patterned, (Vinted) H&M kaftan - then immediately removed it. Next to the sea perhaps, but not dogwalking in downtown Stockwell. Instead, I donned this:

Behold, my beloved NRBY linen skirt. I own two in white, two in sky blue. They are not drawstring (because sack alert) and are the perfect length. They’ve sold out for this summer, but appear every year, and here’s a medium on eBay. It’s teamed with an ancient Massimo Dutti linen shirt (again, I boast four), and my £11.99 Weymouth bucket and spades shop “Panama”. A benevolent stranger informed me I looked like a painting, which I imagine means “old,” but I’ll take it.

My other heatwave stalwart is NRBY’s Chrissie maxi dress. At the beginning of summer, I imagine one is enough. Once it sells out, I discover it isn’t. (There are still smalls, extra-smalls and XLs. Alas, I am 5’7, a size 12, and a medium). Start seeking equivalents and you realise how shabby the alternatives are. See below for my full take on matters.

When not in NRBY, my mid-30s go-to has become the striped Amazon shroud, having studied the reviews and clocking all the broads proclaiming:“This isn’ half bad.” I don’t usually do “off body” as it makes me look duff upward. However, this works, not least with a phone strap, dog leads, and/or a cross-body bag vaguely suggesting one’s physique (for, yes, I’m still doing cross-bodies. Suck it up, Gen Z).

I know not all of us do Amazon, and I totally get why. On the other hand, I was going mad, and now I am merely normal mad, and that feels messianic. Will engage in some Bezos-offsetting.

Anyway, here I am on kaftans / abayas etc…

By Hannah Betts, The Critic, August / September

Summer’s successive, harrowing heatwaves have left clothes stuck to bodies, spirits shrivelled, and marrow leeched from bones. There’s another one going down as I write this and it’s as much as I can do to type, cowering in shuttered darkness, while the outside world cavorts yobbishly about. How is it that dog days are associated with sex and riot? I am a husk, I tell you, a bone-white shell.

Last issue, I referred en passant to the comforts of a tent, the word “dress” understood. Now, in my wretchedness, I would opt for a shroud. I am settling for a kaftan, by which I may mean an abaya. I use these terms as loosely as any other post-imperialist oppressor, as synonyms for loose, vaguely ethnic sack. By “abaya,” I allude to a straight-ish, minimalist-ish, off-body affair, fitted on the shoulder. By “kaftan,” I am indicating something more flouncy, more Abigail’s Party, more “let loose in Monsoon after pink drinks with the girls”.

The kaftan traces its roots to ancient Persia and Mesopotamia. Linguist Gerhard Doerfer argued that the term may reflect an earlier Turkic loanword “kap-ton,” meaning “bag garment,” which fits the general vibe. In bag and on body, it flourished along the Silk Road. Paul Poiret’s corset-free, robe like silhouettes of the 1910s saw him nicknamed “Le Magnifique,” after Süleyman the Magnificent, in a nod to his kaftany Orientalism. It was revived as the symbol of boho chic in the 1960s and 70s, riffed upon by Yves Saint Laurent, Emilio Pucci and Pierre Cardin, and championed by Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, plus armies of shag-happy ‘boomers.

Will Self, an individual even more ghoulishly lugubrious than myself, has taken to sporting what is variously described as a djellaba, shalwar kameez, thobe or jubbah, depending on who is doing the satirising. This corresponds with the “Multicultural Man” pretensions of his column in The New European. Indeed, I have seen him in this garb, as he sweeps through our mutual ‘hood, somewhere between Little Portugal and Little Eritrea. And it works in a Gandalf the Grey-type way. Is this homage, or cultural appropriation? The answer is: “Mate, it’s 36 degrees”.

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What is unacceptable is how thin on the ground decent versions of said garments are. Last summer, I acquired four kaftans from something called Belezza UK. These were risibly awful, barely qualifying as clothes. The company’s customer complaints team stalled for months, offering yet more shit garments, or a discount on the shit garments already despatched. Finally, they provided a Chinese address for me to return said clobber to to the tune of 30 quid. No refund was forthcoming, the package reappearing months later, recipient unknown, the entire exercise costing £180, hours of petitioning, and a portion of my soul.

What I was after was something akin to that nonpareil of kaftanabeyary, NRBY’s Chrissie maxi dress. It’s pull-on; easy, but not dropped of shoulder; in the classiest, cross-dyed linen, able to handle three days sans wash, even if one is a cleanliness obsessive. Perfect collar; perfect v-neck; perfect cuffs; perfect length; hip-skimming, yet with waft; no buttons to gape or spring undone.

It’s been a stalwart since founder Jo Hooper’s first collection in 2019. At the beginning of summer, I imagine one is enough. Once it sells out, I discover it isn’t. Start seeking equivalents and you realise how shabby the alternatives are: crappy of material and length, too beachy (read: transparent), too frou-frou, and/or cut to make one appear as if one is about to start lactating. This rules out most high-street fare.

However, John Lewis does play host to Aab, also in business since 2019. Technically, one might refer to this as “modest wear,” Aab also offering hijabs and prayer outfits. In practice, this means good length and coverage. Its website notes: “The name Aab is derived from the ancient Persian translation for water. Water embodies the spirit of our collection — flowing and unrestricted by borders or ethnicities.”

Head to the source - Aab’s own website, aab.com - where, say, the Blue Stripe Kaftan was not only £3 cheaper than JL at £90, but available in the brand’s genius five lengths. And now it’s £54. I might cut a v into the odd Aab neckline, but that’s because I am plenteous of bust and don’t desire a mono-shelf à la a cross-dressing Les Dawson.

I met yet have my own design concocted, not least as my local tailor, Monsieur Cedric Nohar of South Lambeth Road’s Trend Dry Cleaners, frequently dons one himself. Perhaps he knocks them up for Professor Self.