The Silk Robe: A Short History of Being Painted in Your Bathrobe

On March 30, 1666, Samuel Pepys sat in a London painter's studio until it was almost too dark to work, wearing a gown he had rented for the portrait. The portrait is now in London's National Portrait Gallery, and he's still in the rented robe.

Pepys called it an "Indian gown," and he went home that evening expecting a most excellent picture. To a modern eye it's a slightly funny thing to want: we think of a robe as what you throw on before you're dressed. For much of its history, it was closer to what you wore to be seen at ease, if you could afford to be. And it had come a long way to reach that studio.

Where does the silk robe come from?

It has several homes, starting with silk's own. Silk was first made in China thousands of years ago, and the burial of Lady Dai, who died around 168 BC, shows how early it mattered. When archaeologists opened her tomb at Mawangdui, in what is now Changsha, in the 1970s, they found her wrapped in twenty layers of clothing, with a hundred silk garments in the tomb.

What is a hanbok, and where is the robe in it?

Hanbok means Korean clothing, and its robe is the durumagi, the long outer coat. A woman's hanbok pairs a short jacket, the jeogori, fastened with strings called goreum, with a full skirt, the chima. A man wears the jeogori with roomy pants called baji. Goguryeo tomb murals from the 4th to 6th centuries already show that basic structure.

Over it goes the durumagi, whose name means "closed all around," because it has none of the slits other Korean coats do. A 5th-century tomb mural shows the tomb's owner in a purple or red one, wide-sleeved and belted. It became common formal wear only after the Gabo Reform of 1894.

Who wore silk was a matter of rank. The upper classes wore closely woven ramie in warm weather and silk the rest of the year. Commoners were restricted, by law and by means, to cotton at best.

How did the kimono become a robe?

It began as underwear. Kimono means "thing to wear," and until the Edo period garments of that shape were called kosode, or "small sleeve." The kosode started out as an undergarment. When clothing edicts in the late Heian period cut the number of layers women could wear, it moved toward the surface, and by the Muromachi period (1336 to 1573) it had become outerwear.

The cut is remarkably economical. A woman's kimono is traditionally made of rectangles from a single bolt of cloth, about 12½ yards (11.5 m) long and 14 in (36 cm) wide. Formal kimono are almost always silk.

How did kimonos reach Europe?

They arrived as gifts to Dutch traders. Dutch trade with Japan began in 1609, and members of the Dutch East India Company received silk kimonos from the shogun. Back home these became Japonse rokken, Japanese gowns, and wealthy Dutch men had themselves painted in them: Jan Weenix's 1688 portrait of Abraham van Bronckhorst, in the Amsterdam Museum, is one example.

The style sold so well that workshops in India and the Netherlands began making their own as trade goods, in silk, silk damask, chintz, linen and cotton, sometimes padded with silk wadding. The oldest surviving example dates from about 1675 to 1702, and the Rijksmuseum is among the Dutch museums that hold them.

What is a banyan?

A banyan is a loose at-home gown worn in Europe and America in the late 1600s and the 1700s, cut in a T-shape like a kimono or fitted with buttons like a coat. The name came through Portuguese from the Gujarati word for a merchant. It went over a shirt and breeches, usually with a soft cap in place of the wig, and despite sometimes being called a nightgown, nobody slept in it. Banyans came in cotton, linen or silk.

Men with intellectual ambitions liked to be painted in them. James Thornhill painted Isaac Newton in one between 1709 and 1715. In Boston in 1767, John Singleton Copley painted the merchant Nicholas Boylston in a green banyan. Benjamin Rush, the Philadelphia physician who signed the Declaration of Independence, sat for his portrait in one in about 1783, and he had a theory to go with it: "Loose dresses contribute to the easy and vigorous exercise of the faculties of the mind."

Why were so many robes made of silk?

The record points mainly to status. Silk held color, fell in soft folds and cost enough that wearing it at home told visitors you had some to spare. Korean commoners weren't allowed it. Dutch merchants received it from a shogun. Pepys, who was doing rather well at the Navy Office, still rented his gown for the afternoon. Plenty of robes were never silk at all, since cotton and linen would do. The silk ones were making a point.

When did the dressing gown become everyday wear?

By the mid-1800s, both men and women wore dressing gowns at home. For women they offered relief from corsets and layers of petticoats, and they were worn for breakfast, dressing, sewing and tea. In the US, use fell away late in the 20th century, as the robe came to suggest idleness rather than rank. Somewhere between Boston in 1767 and the end of the driveway in 1990, it lost its portrait.

LS Silk doesn't sell silk robes in the US. If all this leaves you wanting silk for the evening, what we make instead is a nightgown in 19-momme, 100% mulberry silk with a loose, relaxed cut, and a silk camisole. If it's the history you came for, there's also the stories behind the silk scarf and who invented silk.

Silk for the evening, minus the robe: see LS Silk nightgowns and camisoles →

Pepys went home from that sitting and worked on his accounts until past one in the morning. Rush's theory has never, as far as we can find, been tested. Still, the man in the rented gown has been looking out of that portrait for 360 years, and most of us, on a slow morning, would rather be dressed like him than like anyone at the office.

Frequently asked questions

Where did the silk robe originate?

It has no single origin. People cut robes from silk across East Asia long before Europe adopted them, and silk garments appear in a Han dynasty tomb from about 168 BC. Korea's durumagi and Japan's kimono each developed along their own lines.

What is a banyan?

A banyan is a loose gown worn at home in Europe and America in the late 1600s and the 1700s, made in cotton, linen or silk. It was worn over a shirt and breeches, and it's the direct ancestor of the dressing gown. The name comes from a Gujarati word for merchant.

Did the kimono influence the European dressing gown?

Yes. Dutch East India Company traders received silk kimonos as gifts from the shogun, and those gowns became a status symbol in the Netherlands in the 1600s. Workshops in India and the Netherlands then made their own versions, which helped shape the banyan.

Is a hanbok a robe?

Not as a whole. Hanbok means Korean clothing, usually a short jacket with a skirt or pants. Its robe is the durumagi, a long outer coat whose name means closed all around.

Does LS Silk sell silk robes?

No, LS Silk doesn't sell silk robes in the US. The silk sleepwear we do make is a 19-momme, 100% mulberry silk nightgown with a loose, relaxed cut, and a 100% mulberry silk camisole, both in sizes S to XL.

Related reading: How to Style Silk · How to Care for Silk Clothing · What Is Mulberry Silk?