WOODSTOCK — In Diane Dupuis’ shop, each one-of-a-kind, hand-sewn robe has a name and a purpose that’s sort of dressy meets spiritual meets magic.
Each robe takes 10 yards of fabric, starts at $150, takes a week to make, and it’s no light undertaking.
“I can get to very specific interpretations of who you think you are,” said Dupuis, 63. “I don’t alter the image. If you tell me that you think you’re Venus reincarnated, (that’s fine.) There is a caveat to that: I try to stay away from any kind of sex kitten imagery.”
Goddess Robes is not a sex-kitten sort of place.
Dupuis ran the business online for eight years before deciding to open her first retail location last month with her husband, TL Magee, in an 1860 Greek revival in Bryant Pond, a cluster of buildings near a sharp curve and a blinking light.
The couple owned a 16-room bed and breakfast in South Paris for a dozen years before settling here. They’re both teachers, she in ethics and he in math, for Central Maine Community College in Auburn.
Dupuis has been sewing and embroidering since childhood. Her work space now in the refurbished building used to be home to a steam-driven print shop with remnants of it still left in the ceiling.
She calls her robe style an American kimono. It’s specifically not sleepwear. They stretch to the wearers’ wrist and nearly to the floor with open, draped fronts. She’s had people wear her robes over evening gowns or while officiating at weddings.
“I was a former dancer, so I wanted the gown to have a fluidity,” she said. “When you move in the robe, it moves; it sort of has its own life. It’s not something stilted like a dinner jacket.”
Dupuis frequently consults with customers ahead of time, asking about favorite colors and fabric weight and sends swatch ideas from there. She uses satins, cottons, voile and polyester silks on her 1947 Singer sewing machine.
“(One) woman presented herself as very predictable, so you’re thinking, ‘Where is this going to go? Is it going to be monochromatic?'” Dupuis asked. “(Turned out) she likes to break out when she wears clothing to a gala event. She wanted something dynamic and something that people could not take their eyes off. It has very large embroidered flowers on it.”
The robes, which have names like Starry Night, Starburst and Serena, are definitely the stars of the new shop but they’ve rounded out the inventory with handmade works by 13 other artists, all but one of them women, around a theme she calls the “divine feminine.” Swirl patterns enter heavily into the ornaments, pottery and jewelry.
Magee said he believes more people will find Goddess Robes with a physical location. Their market research before opening included sitting and counting cars. In winter, they’d reach 200 an hour. She plans to host monthly invitation-only Goddess Parties in the space, offering chocolate, wine, cheese and art supplies, asking women to create what the phrase “divine feminine” means to them, displaying the artwork for a month.
As robe sales grow, Dupuis said she hopes to move some of her work to local seamstresses, creating a few new jobs.
She’s at work now on the male version of the Goddess Robe, which she’s named the Adonis Wrap, in the style of an updated smoking jacket.
As for her robes’ magical aspect: “Whenever we think about magic, whenever we go out to buy clothes for ourselves, we usually have an identity, whether it’s subliminal or not,” Dupuis said.
“We do identify with certain clothes because we think it represents our spirit,” she said. “Even if we go and buy off the rack. When a garment is made especially for you and there are no duplicates in the world, then I believe that the garment has a special quality that is imbued with who you are intrinsically.”
kskelton@sunjournal.com
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