The Art of Travelling Lightly
Robe de Voyage is a boutique range of luxurious cotton and silk robes designed to pack and go. A check-in essential for every getaway. Each garment is made from khadi, the Indian name for hand spun and hand woven cloth. Khadi is one of the world's most sustainable fabrics, warm in winter and cool in summer, and has long been symbolic of freedom. Working directly with small clusters of spinners and weavers in West Bengal, where weaving is a way of life, Founder and Director Jessica Linklater has a vision for preserving this unique industry of hand weaving, a lengthly but vastly rewarding manufacturing process. “It’s the ultimate in slow fashion,” says Linklater. “I know who has made every piece.” Linklater first visited India when she was studying fashion at the Royal College of Art, where she bought her first khadi kurta that she still sleeps in to this day, and continued to travel to India and Asia when she went on to work for fashion houses in Paris. It was on one of those trips, sitting by a hotel pool in a huge white fluffy gown, that Jessica came across a 1951 photograph of Bogart and Bacall having breakfast together in the Congo in his-and-hers dressing gowns. Inspired by their effortless chic, she set out to design the perfect travel robe. Her first collection, ’Scribble’, in aqueous blue and white evokes ripples of sunlight on water and was painted by Linklater in one continuous brushstroke. The limited edition robes were snapped up by Tate Britain and Pompidou in Paris for their David Hockney retrospective “A Bigger Splash” and sold out. “’Scribble’ isn't just a print; it's a symbol of liberation and self-expression,” Linklater says. “I've tried to create a company that truly reflects my values and a print that resonates with my life; a print that is uniquely mine and ethically produced.” |