When most people think of an ‘investment piece’, they mean Mulberry bag, Burberry scarf. I’m thinking: dressing gown
One of my favourite words in the world, aside from the German for armbands (schwimmflügel, literally swimming wings), is the Russian word halatnost, which means dressing-gownness. This beautiful word was bestowed on the Russian people by Ivan Goncharov in Oblomov, Tolstoy’s favourite book.
The word has come to mean negligence, but archaically (the novel was published in 1859), halatnost equalled lazing around reading the papers on a weekend, mooching about the house, doing not much at all. Maybe a touch of ennui, a lot of daydreaming. The life of the robed gentry: Oblomov is a nobleman who fails to move from his bedroom in the first 50 pages of Goncharov’s book.
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