A letter from a reader

At 67, I had given up on necklaces because I could no longer do the clasps up on my own

I have never written one of these before, and I very nearly did not, because it is a small and slightly silly thing to admit in public. But I have explained it to enough friends now that it seemed easier to write it down once and be done with it.

For the last few years I had quietly stopped wearing necklaces. Not by choice. My fingers are not what they were, and the clasps on everything I owned were those tiny modern catches you have to do up behind your neck, by feel, with two hands that no longer cooperate.

I did not announce it. I just stopped. The good ones went into a drawer, and I told myself I was not really a jewellery person anymore, which was a lie, but an easy one to tell.

I had a whole drawer of necklaces I could no longer put on by myself.

You do not notice how much that quietly takes with it. I live in navy and white, sensible things, and a plain top is a plain top. The necklace was always the bit that lifted it. Without one I just looked a little unfinished, and in time I got used to that too.

Nobody decides to stop wearing the things they like. It happens by small surrenders, one drawer at a time, until one day you realise you have not put a necklace on in longer than you can remember.

How it happens

It is not you. It is the clasps.

Somewhere along the way jewellery got fiddlier. Those little spring rings and lobster catches are small enough when you are thirty and can see them in the mirror. Give it a few decades, add stiff fingers and a touch of arthritis, and doing one up behind your own neck becomes a two-person job you would rather not have to ask anybody for.

So you stop. You keep the earrings, because earrings are easy, and the necklaces go quiet in a drawer. Nobody says anything, because nobody notices a thing that is simply no longer there.

What I had wrong

Here is the part I had wrong, and I suspect I am not the only one.

I had decided the problem was me. That I had reached the age where you let these things go. In fact the problem was the fastening, and a fastening is a solvable thing.

The set I want to tell you about does up with a toggle clasp. If you have not come across one, it is just a little bar on one end that you drop through a ring on the other, at the front, where you can actually see it. No fumbling behind your neck. No feeling about for a catch the size of a grain of rice. You bring the two ends round to the front, post the bar through the ring, and slide it to sit at the side. I can do it in a second, on my own, first go.

And once I could put a necklace on again, I remembered the other thing it does. A bit of turquoise against a plain top is the difference between looking dressed and looking finished.

The set is called the Turquelle

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

It is called the Turquelle, and it is a necklace and bracelet set. Chunky turquoise stones with a baroque pearl drop, on a necklace that sits at sixteen inches, with a matching bracelet at seven. The turquoise is the colour that does the lifting, and the pearl drop keeps the whole thing smart rather than showy.

You can wear the two together or on their own. On a plain day I put just the necklace on. If I am going somewhere I add the bracelet, and with two little pieces it looks as though I have actually thought about what I put on, which some mornings I have not.

It does not bother my skin either, which one or two of the cheaper bits used to. I can wear it all day and forget it is there.

What happened at the lunch

I wore it for the first time to a lunch here in Cheshire, over a plain white shirt.

Four women asked me about it before the puddings had even arrived. One of them was Ann, who I have known for thirty years and who has never once passed comment on anything I have worn. She asked if it was new and where it was from, and I wrote it on the back of my receipt for her.

But the thing I keep coming back to was not the asking. It was that I had put it on myself that morning, standing at the mirror, without calling through to anybody for help. Such a small thing. It had been a long time.

I have worn it more days than not since. To the lunch, to the shops, round the garden, to church on a Sunday. It has quietly become the thing I reach for.

Three things I have learned since

One. The clasp is the whole point. A toggle sounds like a small detail until it turns out to be the difference between wearing a necklace and not. If your hands have started to let you down, this is the bit that matters.

Two. The colour does the work. I had forgotten how much a little turquoise lifts navy and white. It is the piece that makes a plain outfit look considered without any effort at all.

Three. Two pieces beat one. The matching bracelet means I can wear the pair when I want a bit more, or just the necklace when I want a bit less. Between them they cover most of what I do.

About the price

I will be honest, the price made me a little suspicious to begin with.

The Turquelle is £30.95. It was £50.00.

My first thought was that there had to be a catch, because you can pay a good deal more than that on the high street for something that turns your neck green by the second wear.

There is no catch that I have found. It is a small boutique selling directly, so there is nobody taking a cut in the middle, and they have their summer sale on to move the season's stock.

I did what I imagine you are doing now 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 more. One woman had written, "I can finally do the clasp myself, and I have worn it with everything." That was the one that decided it for me.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat with a cup of tea and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you have a drawer of necklaces you have quietly stopped wearing because the clasps have got too fiddly, or you simply want something that lifts the plain things you already own, it is worth ten minutes of an evening to have a look.

Not because a necklace fixes anything. It does not. But there is a small, quiet pleasure in being able to put on something you like, by yourself, of a morning, and I had forgotten what it felt like.

The sale is on now and these little sets go quickly, so if you fancy it I would not sit on it too long.

I am wearing necklaces again, and I do not have to ask anybody to help.

Maggie