Lingerie & Loungewear

A small rail, bought for wearing at home rather than for being looked at, and fitted upstairs with the door shut.

This part of the shop is bought against a single question, which is whether the garment is pleasant on the third day of wearing it. Almost nothing sold in this category is designed with that in mind, and the tell is always the same: a seam that lies against the skin on the inside, elastic bound rather than covered, and a fibre content that is mostly polyamide with a satin finish standing in for quality.

So it is cotton, silk and fine merino, in about nine styles, from three makers. It is not extensive and it is not trying to be. Two of the three makers we found through customers who complained, at length and correctly, that we did not stock anything they could sleep in.

The rail

The cotton set

Poplin, piped, and cut generously. Washes at 40 and improves for about two years. The most bought thing in the category by a long way.

The silk slip

Washed silk, so it survives a basin. Doubles as a dress under a knit, which is how most people actually use it.

The merino base layer

For January in an Athenian apartment built in 1968, which is colder inside than out. Unglamorous and quietly the reason people come back in winter.

The robe

One, in cotton waffle, in two lengths. We have looked at forty of these over three years and bought one.

Soft-cup bras, four sizes of band

No underwire on the rail. That is a limitation, we say so, and we will tell you where on Skoufa to go if underwire is what you need.

Socks, unreasonably good

Merino, ribbed, made by the knitter in Volos on the older of her two frames. Sold in threes because one is never the problem.

Fittings and returns

Fittings are upstairs in the accessories room with the door shut, by appointment, with Eleni or Sofia — whichever you would rather, and you can say so without explaining. Nothing is measured that does not need to be, nobody comments on anything, and the tape goes away as soon as it is done.

Hygiene rules mean this is the one category we cannot take back once worn. What we can do, and would much rather do, is have you try it here first. Returns on anything unworn run the usual thirty days.