…that is actually about sex
A silk dressing gown arrived a few days ago. Gentleman’s, paisley, pockets, raffish shawl lapel, nice shape and cuffs; no cording but that’s OK, it only cost me £16. Absolute winner. Good second hand ones aren’t often found. My Dad’s got a couple - including, at 82, his old school one with a tie for a belt. Very Rupert Everett in Another Country. But these aren’t for taking and even if he were to offer them up in the old school style, “Quis?” It might not be me to get in the first, “Ego!”
There’s been an on / off quest for a dressing gown in the last decade. My “picture the scene” inspo for dressing gowns is very specific because I am not a fan of these garments. I detest bath robes. I had a housemaster at school who came round our dorm of 16 and 17 year old girls in his M&S terry towelling “shorty” and revolting slippers. It really put me off them in any shape or form on men. I have never seen a man who looks desirable in a bath robe. Women, too. The bath robe is just practical and bulk.
For years I had one stolen from a hideous spa where I did a detox so vicious and challenging that I actually had to run away after a few days. The towelling robe is functional, but has zero form. I used to look at it hanging on the back of the bath room door and resent how bloody ugly it was.
Unless the towelling is properly cotton and porous, they don’t absorb anything. It’s like throwing on an enormous Jellycat. Usually, I’m the only person not wearing the fluffy robe at the spa.
Women’s dressing gowns are almost entirely everything I hate about being a woman. Twee and “gaily patterned” as they’d have said back in the 1950s. I inherited a cute very old one from my Granny but it fell apart a few years ago. It could not be salvaged. I don’t mind a white linen or cotton one, but they don’t say much about a girl do they, nor feel especially thrilling against bare skin. And silky ones just don’t look very cool to me.
Who thinks about being cool in their dressing gown. Well, surprisingly given how uncool I am most of the time, I do. I really do.
My mental mood board has an early to mid Century posh chap’s dressing gown on it, and a short vignette in which I roll out of bed naked and throw it on while turning to a man (just out of shot, doesn’t need to be posh) in the bed and asking if they want coffee. So, in that setting and scene, you want to feel confident and with an air of easy cool. Who wouldn’t?
The tiny corner of my brain concerned with finding a dressing gown has sometimes, in the last few years, been the only thing keeping a dim light on me as not just a sexual being but a woman in any shape or form at all. The end of this years-long quest feels sort of momentous. Something has shifted.
The shorty kimono from Agent Provocateur was a bit much; I couldn’t take the bins out in it. The Chinese-y one was great in pix but too cheap feeling in real life. I tried to buy a good quality second hand one but they’re blood expensive and I am hobbled by no cashflow, any time there is cashflow it flows directly to somewhere else: the garage, the petrol pump, the utilities, the Amex, the list is truly endless.
Patently, a decent new one is a total no. Forget it. New & Lingwood have the perfect one but it’s £1500. My terrible weakness is that stupid gentrified poverty that still insists on nice things despite a state of penury that would have you in a workhouse 200 years ago. Your average second hand fur coat is cheaper than a decent second hand men’s silk dressing gown. Indeed, there was a while back there when I had a ratty old floor length fur that I found in my sister’s dressing up box, which did well as a dressing gown.
So this one’s a cracker. Cleared out from a dead father’s wardrobe I suspect and sold on in haste, it’s not Jermyn Street, but it’s pretty good quality of the sort found in a 20th Century long gone regional department store’s gentleman’s department. Things were made differently then.
Finally I’ve found my dream thing to throw on when I get out of bed after sex.
Except, I haven’t had sex in a really long time.
I have a friend whose sex life with her ex husband was last to go. In fact, they had sex on the morning they split up. My repeated pattern in relationships is that the sex goes first, and then the rest of it inevitably steadily declines. I’m sure it’s a classic pattern and if I ever have a proper relationship again triaging this will be 100% a super important priority. The minute you’re not fucked, you’re fucked. Unravelling this is far too complex a detour for a Substack about dressing gowns and whether I should buy another fucking gadget. Perhaps we will navigate it duly, but I’ll need to talk to some experts first. Let me know in the comments if you’re interested.
I’ve got drawers full of health trackers, wearables and sundry electronic gubbins sent for me to review as the latest must have life enhancing gizmo for enhancing human life. Do I want more? Do I need…
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