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

They were invented so surfers and swimmers could get undressed without flashing. So why are Dryrobes – half-towel, half-jacket – taking over our high streets? 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?”