A letter from a reader

At 68, I had spent three summers holding a cardigan shut over my middle

There is a photograph of me at my granddaughter’s sports day last July, in what the forecast called a heatwave, wearing a navy cardigan over a dress and holding it shut with one hand. Everybody else is in short sleeves. I am 68, I am not a writer, and I am telling you about that photograph because I suspect some of you have one too, and have never said out loud why the cardigan was on.

Then three different women asked me about a dress at the village fete on Saturday, and I have said the same thing three times, so I am writing it down once.

Here is why the cardigan was on. Every dress I owned did one of two things. It pulled across my middle, because it was cut for a woman whose middle was somewhere else. Or it had a seam at the waist, which sat exactly where I did not want a seam, and announced it. So I put a cardigan over the lot, in July, and held it shut, and was hot, and told myself nobody noticed. They noticed. Sylvia asked me once if I was poorly.

A dress that showed my middle, or a cardigan in a heatwave. For three summers I chose the cardigan.

Nobody decides to dress like that. It happens one seam at a time, until holding a cardigan shut is just how you stand.

Then Margaret came to the allotment without a cardigan

Margaret has the plot next to mine and the same middle as me, and we have both spent three summers in cardigans and not mentioned it. In June she came through the gate in a soft green dress with rows of fine pleats down the front, no cardigan, and I said, you will catch your death, which was a joke, because it was twenty-six degrees. She said, look, and ran her hand down the front, and the pleats let go just under the bust and the fabric fell loose from there, and there was nothing pulling anywhere.

It is called the Gwendoline, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I ordered the green that evening, fully expecting to send it back.

It did not go back. The cardigan did, to the drawer.

What happened at the fete

I wore it on Saturday with flat sandals and no cardigan, for the first time in three years, and I ran the tombola for two hours, bent for the prizes, and stood in the sun.

Three different women asked me where it was from before the raffle was drawn. And Sylvia, who has known me thirty years and does not hand out compliments, said I looked cooler than everybody else there. I think she meant the temperature. I am taking it. From Sylvia, that is practically a medal.

Here is why it works, as far as I can tell. The top is a plain smooth yoke, and below it are rows of fine vertical pleats that let go at the top of the waist, so the fabric falls from the bust, loose, and there is no seam to sit on the middle and nothing to pull across it. The neck is wide and plain, nothing at my throat. The sleeves are short and cover the tops of my arms. It goes on over my head with nothing to do up. It comes to mid-calf, so my legs are my own business. And it is light, properly light, which after three summers in a cardigan felt like being let out.

It has been out four times since. The shops, lunch, the allotment, and once to sit in the garden for no reason. The cardigan has not been out at all.

Three things worth knowing

One. It was never the dress. It was the seam. Every dress that failed me had a seam at the middle, or a cut that pulled there. Take the seam away and let the fabric fall from the bust, and the whole problem goes with it.

Two. The pleats are the trick. They look like a detail, rows of little tucks down the front. What they do is hold the fabric close at the top and let it go exactly where you want room. It is clever, and it looks like somebody thought about it.

Three. Three colours, honest sizes. The green I own, a navy and an orange, from a UK 8 right up to a 24, the same shape all the way up, which I wish more places would bother with. I went back for the navy. Margaret has all three and has not worn a cardigan since May.

About the price

I am careful with money and I will not pretend otherwise, so I will tell you the price was the bit that made me suspicious.

The Gwendoline is £30.95. It was £62.00.

My first thought was that there had to be a catch, because a dress that actually thinks about where a woman’s middle is usually costs a good deal more, when you can find one at all.

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 before it turns.

I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people, so I read on. One woman had written, “The pleats fall from the bust and nothing pulls across my middle. First dress in years I have worn without something over it.” That was the one that decided it for me.

If you were stood at my kitchen table

If you were stood at my kitchen table with the kettle on and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you have spent the summer holding a cardigan shut, you are not being vain. You have been buying dresses cut for a middle that is not yours, and covering the difference yourself. This is one cut for the middle you have, and it lets you take the cardigan off in July, which is where cardigans do not belong.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and the middle sizes go first. And once the summer stock has gone, that is it until next year.

The cardigan is back in the drawer. In July. Where it belongs.

Pat