A letter from a reader

At 68, I realised I had not worn a collar since the day I retired

I wore a collar to work for thirty years. Blouses, ironed on a Sunday night, five of them on the rail in order. And on the last day, ten years ago now, I came home, took the blouse off, and I do not think I have put a collar on since. I am 68, I am not a writer, and I did not notice that until this summer, when I went to find one and there was not one in the wardrobe.

Then three different women asked me about a blouse at the church coffee morning on Saturday, and I have said the same thing three times, so I am writing it down once.

Here is how the collars go. A collar meant work. It meant an iron, and a Sunday night, and being somebody’s Mrs Holloway across a desk. So the day I did not have to, I stopped, and everything I have bought since has been a t-shirt, because a t-shirt asks nothing and means nothing. Which was the point. What I had not clocked was that ten years of t-shirts had quietly turned me into a woman who looked like she had finished for the day, at church, at lunch, at the doctor’s, and everywhere else I went.

A collar that meant work, or a t-shirt that meant I had clocked off. For ten years I clocked off.

Nobody decides to stop looking like themselves. It happens one comfortable morning at a time, until you go looking for a collar and find you have not owned one for a decade.

Then Jean wore a collar to the allotment

Jean next door came through the gate in June in a soft green top with a small round collar edged in cream, five buttons down the front and a little frill at the elbow, and I said, you are dressed for a meeting. She said, I am dressed for the beans, and bent down and started picking. It was not a work collar. It was small, and rounded, and soft, and it sat over a V so it was nowhere near her throat, and she looked, I have to say, like a woman who had somewhere to be that was not the allotment, while being at the allotment.

It is called the Margarethe, 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. I have a collar again.

What happened at the coffee morning

I wore it on Saturday with jeans and my good cardigan over the back of the chair, and I poured tea for two hours and did not tug at it once.

Three different women asked me where it was from before the urn had boiled. And Sylvia, who has known me thirty years and does not hand out compliments, said I looked like myself again, which I did not know I had stopped doing. From Sylvia, that is practically a medal.

Here is why it works, as far as I can tell. The collar is small and rounded and soft, with a fine scalloped edge in cream, and it sits over a V, so it is a collar without being a collar at my throat. The five little buttons down the front and the frill at the elbow make it look finished, like somebody thought about it. It is loose and easy through the body, so there is nothing to tug at, and it is light, which in July was the point. And it is a proper green, not a green that is really grey, so I do not disappear into the wall of the church hall.

It has been out three times since. Lunch, the shops, and the allotment, where Jean said, told you, and went back to her beans.

Three things worth knowing

One. It is the collar, but not that collar. Rounded, small, soft, edged in cream, over a V. It reads as pretty, not as Monday morning, and that is the entire difference between this and the five blouses I gave to the charity shop.

Two. The details do the work. Five little buttons, a frill at the elbow, a hem a touch longer at the back. None of it shouts. All of it means you look like you got dressed rather than got up.

Three. Five colours, honest sizes. The green I own, a peach, a blue, a pink and a white, from a UK 10 to an 18, the same easy shape all the way. I went back for the peach. Jean has three, and wears them all to the beans.

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 Margarethe is £22.95. It was £46.00.

My first thought was that there had to be a catch, because a blouse with a collar like that in a department store is a good deal more than that, and half the time it is stiff as a board.

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 collar is the thing. Soft, pretty, and it does not look like a work shirt. I have worn it with jeans every week since May.” 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 took your collar off the day you retired and never put one back on, you were not giving up. You were done with the collars that meant work, and quite right. This is a collar that means nothing except that you look like yourself, and it costs less than the ironing used to.

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.

I have a collar again. Nobody is paying me to wear it.

Pat