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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Amelia Tait

Too cool for the pool: how the Dryrobe became the most divisive thing you can wear

Dryrobe in the supermarket
Supermarket chic: fashion magazines have branded the Dryrobe ‘the must-have, all-season coat’. Photograph: Serena Brown/The Guardian

During the spring lockdown in 2020, Christopher Sloman was walking down a street in Hove when he saw what looked like a green dinosaur looming towards him. The 48-year-old charity shop worker was baffled by the figure in the distance – until he realised it was a woman whose coat was so oversized that her hands (one carrying a phone, the other a coffee) “looked really small,” Sloman says. “I thought: My God, what on earth is that?”

“That” turned out to be a Dryrobe – the £160 ankle-length, waterproof robe designed as an outdoor changing robe for surfers in 2010 which has become the go-to piece of kit for any half-serious outdoor swimmer.

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