You first start to notice them in that desultory way you become aware of the floating specks across your vision that signify a migraine is on the way. Perhaps you saw a woman in Waitrose wearing a black one and wondered why she was sporting a giant version of the Umbro football manager’s coat from the 1990s. Then someone pointed out the hot pink camo combo on the sidelines at an under-12s rugby tournament and, looking across the pitches, you realised just how ubiquitous they have become. By the time you spot my own hate-favourite – the Dryrobe Advance Abstract, a limited edition now out of stock which looks like the old Channel 4 test card – you may be experiencing full-on throbbing temples.
Dryrobes, the towel-with-sleeves invented in 2010 so surfers could get changed on the beach without flashing, have become one of the metrics of our time. Over the past few years the £165 dressing gowns have migrated inland, embraced by A-listers (Harry Styles, Rita Ora) and soccer mums alike. They’ve appeared in Vogue, while Grazia pronounced them the ‘must-have, all-season coat’ – welcome news if you’re a fashion-conscious Jedi.
But with great popularity comes great risibility (Crocs, Uggs), encapsulated by the recent Daily Mash headline: ‘“I’m fresh from the surf” claims woman wearing Dryrobe for school run in Derby’. Company founder Gideon Bright never reveals sales figures but admits that sales have spiked since 2021. Similarly, there are now more than 155,000 members of the Dry Robe Wankers group on Facebook, with 6,000 joining in the past week alone. DRW’s purpose is to post ‘pictures of people using a Dryrobe for anything other than its intended purpose of keeping you dry after exiting the water’.
DRW submissions are particularly popular when they’re in counties without a coastline: at the Esso garage in Devizes, Wiltshire, a good 70 miles from the sea; Rugby in Warwickshire; Old Trafford (‘and not even the leaky end’); and inside Chatsworth House (which is itself in landlocked Derbyshire). They’re particularly loathed in Cornwall. Partly, I think, because Gideon Bright is from Devon but mostly because they’re worn by entitled ‘Emmets’ (incomers) when they visit their second homes. As one native says: ‘None of us locals can afford them.’ The first sightings usually occur at the start of the Easter holidays in the Little Waitrose on the A38 near Liskeard.
A DRW spot is even more pleasing when it’s in Waitrose, on the Tube (important to stay nice and dry underground), when the air temperature is above 15 degrees, if the DRW wearer is also clasping a turmeric oat milk latte in a travel mug, sporting Crocs or sliders with socks, or wearing a clear plastic poncho over the top – because Dryrobes are not actually very waterproof.
Even proper sea swimmers are divided on the Dryrobe. Living as I do in the farthest reaches of East Anglia, I have several friends who swim year-round. I message Hester, who swims off Cley when the water is -10, to ask if she has one.
‘No I bloody don’t,’ she snaps. ‘I have an Equidry which is totally different and far more sophisticated.’ Crucially, she stresses: ‘I only wear it when swimming or riding.’ Most members of her sea swimmers’ group do own a version, although one woman admits that she stopped wearing hers after her car broke down when returning from a swim. She was wearing nothing underneath. The AA man’s reaction more positive than her daughter’s when she wore the same robe pitch-side (and clothed underneath), she recalls. But another friend who’s swum the Channel is scathing: ‘Any self-respecting sea swimmer should need nothing more than a line-dried hand towel,’ she says, crisply.
En suite bathrooms in boarding schools. Social services brought in if children aren’t clasping a bottle of water in the classroom. No wonder Putin despises us
Dryrobe hate has grown exponentially with sales because all strata of society have succumbed. What’s your particular prejudice? Casual misogyny? Dryrobes are ‘menopause macs’, worn by a middle-aged Karen walking a cockapoo. Are you a misguided Marxist who’d only be swayed if the new colour drop included a camo in the colours of the Palestinian flag? Then they’re a wealth flex; arguments about whether Dryrobes are Tory rage online. Sherborne Girls’ School (fees £53,640 p.a. inc. VAT) has a ‘Sherborne Girls Dryrobe’ on its uniform list and many private schools now include a version on their kit list.
Others argue that the Dryrobe is about as Tory as our Ange Rayner – ‘Are Dryrobes chavvy?’ is a popular Google search. Coleen Rooney has one, though it’s the white Alpine Special Edition with ‘a detachable faux fur trim on the fleece-lined hood’ and is even more expensive, at £180. If your brand of class hatred is the more conventional snobbery, then confirmation bias says you’ll see Dryrobes in Lidl, Greggs, Asda and in the smoking area of Spoons. These Dryrobes will be accessorised with, variously, Ugg boots, a vape, Victoria’s Secret body spray, large lips and cheeks, and slung over a Juicy Couture tracksuit. So, something for every Dryrobophobe.
Once, Britain’s sea swimmers got changed under a chilly towel on a shingle beach. So perhaps the Dryrobe is another indicator of jusr how soft we have become, how degenerate. En suite bathrooms in boarding schools. Social services brought in if children aren’t clasping a bottle of water in the classroom. No wonder Putin despises us. Still, all the camo cosiness may be useful when we’re drafted to the frontline in Ukraine. I’ve no idea how many Dryrobes have been sold since I started writing but the DRW group has now passed 157,000 members. Come on in – the water’s full of raw sewage.
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