Women's hooded flannel bathrobe

Start with what the garment is for: a bathrobe earns its place in the ten minutes after a bath, when you want to be dry and warm at the same time. Flannel is a woven cotton brushed on both faces. The brushing raises a soft nap that traps warmth, without the synthetic feel of a fleece. That is the difference between a flannel robe and one that only looks the part.

In use it shows up as one thing: warm and breathable at once — the combination fleece cannot manage, because the base is still cotton. There is more of this in our dressing gown belt range.

Women ask about the cut through the shoulder and where the belt sits at the waist before anything else, and they are right to — it is where most robes fall down. For more on this, browse our flannel dressing gown womens.

• Soft from the first wear — no breaking-in period: the nap is raised at the mill, not by use
• It looks like clothing, not like loungewear — which is what makes it wearable when someone knocks at the door
• A hood on a robe — it keeps wet hair off the shoulders and off the back of the neck, which is the single thing that makes a robe worth keeping on after a bath
• Belt loops that hold the belt — a small thing, and the first thing missing on a cheap robe

Flannel pills slightly at the cuffs over a couple of winters. A fabric shaver takes care of it in two minutes, and the fabric is otherwise very long-lived. Machine wash at 40°C, tumble dry low. Treated that way, a flannel bathrobe lasts five winters rather than one — the difference between a robe you keep on the back of the door and one you replace every autumn. The same need shows up in our flannel dressing gown.