One Tailor Is Using Red Carpet Cast-Offs To Create Stay-at-Home Robes

Loungewear isn’t necessarily tailor Christy Rilling’s speciality. After all, she grew to fame after altering—and eventually creating—one-off pieces for celebrities and politicians, including Emily Ratajkowski and Michelle Obama. With a background in megawatt tailoring, Rilling later went on to launch a debut collection of bespoke dresses. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rilling no longer had clients attending movie premieres or awards shows for the foreseeable future. She found herself with a problem on her hands—and a whole lot of red carpet fabric. To make lemonade out of lemons, or rather, plenty of silk, Rilling started what she terms as a “stay home” robe, a capsule collection of robes that uses leftover fabric from Rilling’s celebrity jobs.

Each robe comes with its own fabulous history. A marigold version of the robe, which Hunt models, uses the silk lining from the dress that Ms. Obama wore to the 2016 State of the Union Address. Another standout is a robe made from Sherman’s print that was originally for the Undercover Spring 2018 collection and was donated to Rilling by Sherman herself. “There is something in all of them that brings back happy memories,” says Rilling. The robes are priced from $1,180 to $2,100 dollars, and with each sale, Rilling will donate 30 percent of the proceeds to the Food Bank for New York City.