My Quest For a Chic Robe

Bitter Moon, silk...plus, Plum Sykes and Anny Choi weigh in on my Valentine's Day want.

A classic white terrycloth robe in Bitter Moon (1992)

My loungewear is not loungewear. It’s a filthy Taxicabs Confessions merch shirt with a peeling screen print and a few pairs of acrylic pajama pants I’ve been marinating in since high school. And when there’s nothing to cover up in, I go full nude, which, no matter how you spin going in the buff, seeing the same unclothed body every day gets boring, sapped of allure, and simply becomes a mound of flesh.

As you might have picked up, there is no elegance in my around-the-house loungewear routine. (My sheets are tasteless, pathetic, and low-quality, too). There are no palm-soft night pieces seen in magazines nestled in my drawers—not even a set of pilling flannels! Yet, I thirst for nightwear that cascades off the body and nips at the waist—like a really great jacket but for sleep. I was obsessed with finding a good robe after I watched a hazy, erotic French film from the mid-‘70s. (I forget the name—and the plot—but it’s somewhere in the depths of Criterion Collection). I remember one scene of a dazed woman in bed in a blush pink silk robe that falls slightly ajar to reveal a cowlick of pubic hair. This is a film in which a suitor craves her. Wants to drink her scent. Will lap up every sliver of skin he can see. Here, the robe becomes a tongue-wagging game of sensual peekaboo.

As a bonus, the monogrammed robe in Mommie Dearest (1981), complete with the severe neck covering

I wanted—no needed—a robe like the retro French film. A piece that would tickle the skin and act as a silky glaze on the body. Something that would transform my mornings into something otherworldly. I contacted the queen of waxing poetic Voguette

Plum Sykes

, a self-described robe addict who buys her pyjamas across borders. “It’s the sort of thing I end up buying