One of the staples of a comfortable life in today’s time is the bathrobe. Despite being a simple piece of clothing, the history and symbolism behind boys and girls bathrobes are both very deep and have a lot of implications on current fashion and trends. As more and more people have been able to afford bathrobes in recent times because of prices falling, it’s more important than ever to learn about where these items come from and how they can be beneficial to people from all types of different backgrounds.
A Brief History of Bathrobes
Long before the days of indoor plumbing, people in heavily-populated areas of Europe would all bathe in the same building. These buildings, known as bathhouses, were shared by lots of people, and so a certain lack of privacy was inevitable. To help combat this, boys and girls bathrobes were used instead of a full set of clothing to quickly and easily cover the majority of the body. These bathrobes were easy to slip on and off, allowing only brief moments of full nudity before and after bathing. Today, bathrobes are primarily used for the same purpose.
Before there were robes created especially for bathing, robes were generally worn by royalty and other powerful people who held strong positions in the church and government. These sorts of ceremonial robes definitely helped to mold the present-day feelings that we have about bathrobes being a symbol of comfort and power. Since only people who held a certain degree of importance would have been able to afford bathrobes in the past, the symbolic aspects of ceremonial robes carried over to the bathhouses. Once in the bathhouses, boys bathrobes only needed to cover the bottom half to be functional, but girls bathrobes would have to cover almost the entire body. Perhaps for the sake of making robes unisex, or even to preserve the robe as a symbol of power, males would wear the same types of bathrobes as females.
Aside from the European influence on present-day bathrobes, there is also an Asian influence. The kimono, a style of robe that originated from eastern Asia, very much resembles the bathrobes that people wear in modern times. In fact, the designs of many girls bathrobes are based on the designs of the kimono because of the popularity of eastern influence in today’s fashion.
The Most Common Uses for Bathrobes
As the name implies, the primary use for a bathrobe is to wear after taking a bath or shower to cover the body. Along these lines, girls bathrobes are a bit more popular than their male counterparts because females generally need to cover the entire body. Males, on the other hand, can often make due with a simple towel around their waist. Aside from covering the body, bathrobes perform another important function. Immediately after you exit the bath and dry yourself off, you are still going to be a bit damp, and this can make putting on regular clothes somewhat difficult or uncomfortable. A bathrobe can be of great help in getting rid of this damp feeling since they are usually designed to soak up moisture.
Wearing bathrobes after other activities that leave your body wet is a natural extension of their primary purpose. If you like to go swimming often, you might not want to walk around afterwards in just your swimming attire, especially if you are a female. Girls bathrobes combined with appropriate waterproof shoes are excellent for this purpose, but boys bathrobes are popular for this purpose as well. Naturally, it would also make sense to take along a bathrobe if you were visiting the beach, surfing, or going to a water park.
As more people have started to wear them after activities where they might be needed, the comfort and ease of bathrobes have led people to wear them around the house like they would pajamas or sweatpants. It’s fairly common today for people to wake up first thing in the morning and put on a bathrobe before leaving their bedrooms instead of changing clothes completely. If you have young women in the house who like to eat breakfast before taking a shower and getting ready for their day, then girls bathrobes are an excellent idea to keep them from changing clothes more than what’s necessary in the mornings.
A Symbol of Luxury
As mentioned earlier, robes have been a symbol of power for centuries, and bathrobes have been a natural extension of that. When you’re sitting at home in your bathrobe on a day off, you feel different than if you were wearing regular clothes. You are relaxed and at ease, and you probably feel more confident and good about yourself in general. The symbolism of the robe runs very deep into our minds and can drastically change our moods. For an example of this in action, if you want to make young women feel like princesses, then have them wear girls bathrobes and give them some attention. Hotels and spas do this to make you feel good about your experience so that you’ll come back for more, and it works because robes are such a symbol of power and luxury.
Because all bathrobes start off essentially the same, there are tons of possibilities for customization. If you’ve ever seen a lot of white robes hung together, then you understand how difficult it can be to pick a specific one out of the group. How you choose to customize your bathrobe says a lot about you as a person and it gives you a chance to express yourself to the world in a way that many people will never experience. Boys bathrobes will tend to be masculine and have a symbolism that relates to armor, while girls bathrobes will usually be lightweight and feminine. You can start off by having your name or initials embroidered on the collar of the robe. To take this a step further, you could have something else embroidered on the robe that means a lot to you, like a quote or a symbol, to really make it special to you.
February 14th, 2012 
admin 