It should have what to wear in that text but more importantly it shouldn't have given me this message at all since I was wearring the robe, I then tried zoning and coming back to zone wearing just the robe and speaking with the NPC a few times still couldn't get the quest:
This morning, talked without the robe on and got typical message, talked again with robe on got message I need to equip myself with _____ and when i waited a few minutes more and spoke with her a 3rd time I got the quest activated and completed.
I'm not sure why it worked the last time and not the first few times. I also know that the quest never showed up in my current quests. I'll try to recreate with a new character and see if I get same issue.