A letter from a reader

At 67, my daughter asked if anything in my wardrobe was actually a colour

I have never written anything like this before, and I want to say at the start that I am not a writer and I am not in the habit of telling other women what to wear.

But four different women asked me about this dress at a summer lunch a fortnight ago, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

It started when my daughter helped me clear the wardrobe in the spring. She held up thing after thing and in the end she said the quiet part out loud.

Mum, is there anything in here that is actually a colour?

There was not. Beige, stone, navy, black, and a grey cardigan older than my grandson. Rail after rail of nothing you could call a colour at all.

I did not choose that. Nobody decides to dress in fog. It happens quietly, one safe purchase at a time, until a colour feels like too much of a statement to make at the till.

How it happens

You reach an age where the shops seem to decide, on your behalf, that you would like to disappear.

Everything offered to us is described as easy, or forgiving, or flattering, which we all know by now is a polite way of saying nobody thought about you very hard. And it is all the colour of a wet Tuesday.

So you buy the navy one, because it is fine, and you wear it, and nobody says anything, which is rather the point of it.

And a bright dress starts to feel like something for other women. Younger ones, or braver ones, or ones with somewhere to be.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong. I thought a real colour would be loud on me now, and that a print would be worse.

It is the opposite. A good print in warm colours does not shout. It lifts your face, it hides a spill, and it means nobody is studying the shape of you because they are looking at the dress.

And I had assumed anything that looked like an occasion would be uncomfortable. This is the part that still makes me laugh. This dress is as comfortable as the nightie I would rather be in, because the waist is gathered and gives, and the whole thing just floats.

Comfortable and cheerful had felt like a choice of one. It is not, and it took me until 67 to find that out.

The dress is called the Gloria

It is from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now.

The dress is called the Gloria. A flowing midi in a vivid red print, soft V-neck with a little crochet trim, short sleeves, and a gathered waist that skims instead of gripping. There is a blue and a purple as well, which I will come back to.

It is light as anything and it moves when you do. The waist does all the clever work, gathering you in gently and then letting the skirt fall, so it flatters without holding on to you anywhere.

And the print is the sort that people notice before they notice you, which after years of navy is a very restful thing to have happen.

What happened at the lunch

I wore it to a summer lunch with flat sandals and my good earrings.

Four women asked me where it was from. Four. One of them was Wendy, who I have known for thirty years and who has never once commented on anything I have worn.

She said I looked like summer had arrived. I have decided to take that as a compliment.

What I noticed more than the compliments was that I felt like myself in it, which is not a word I had been able to use about my clothes for a long time.

The next morning I put it straight back on to potter about the garden, and it was just as right for that.

Three things I have learned since

One. A print is kinder than a plain colour. I had it backwards. A busy warm print forgives everything, from a dropped bit of lunch to the shape you actually are, far better than a flat block of navy ever did.

Two. The waist is everything. A gathered, giving waist is the difference between a dress you enjoy and a dress you are counting down the hours to unzip. There is no zip here to count down to.

Three. Colour changes how people speak to you. Not a grand thing. But people say hello more, and smile first, and I had not realised how much the fog had been doing the opposite.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me suspicious.

The Gloria is £28.95. It was £58.00.

My first thought was that there had to be a catch, because you can pay more than that on the high street for a summer dress that will be misshapen by August.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and they run a summer sale to shift the season's stock.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. Real people, mixed opinions, mostly very good.

Then I ordered the blue one as well.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat in the garden and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you have been reaching for the same dark, safe things all summer, not because you like them but because a colour felt like too much, then it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look.

Not because a dress will change your life. But there is something in getting dressed and recognising yourself that I had quietly given up on, and I would rather you did not give up on it too.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and the middle sizes go first, which I found out because the 14 in blue had gone by the time I went back for it. And once the summer stock has sold through, that is it until next year.

I have not worn beige since the spring.

Maggie