A letter from a reader

At 67, I had stopped buying anything pretty because every dress left my arms bare

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 friend's garden party here in Cheshire on Saturday, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

It is the arms. That is the part nobody warns you about. Somewhere in my sixties I stopped reaching for anything pretty in a shop, because the moment I turned it over on the hanger it was sleeveless, or the sleeves were the little cap sort that stop right at the widest part, and I would put it straight back on the rail.

Every dress I liked left my arms bare.

So I stopped looking. I told myself I was past dresses, that they were for other women, and I went home with the same dark trousers and the same loose top I had worn for years. It is a quiet sort of giving up, and I did not even notice I had done it.

I did not choose to dress like that. That is the part I want to be clear about. Nobody decides it. It happens quietly, one sensible decision at a time, until one day you realise you own nothing you actually like.

How it happens

I used to wear whatever I liked. In my forties I had a blue dress I wore to everything and never once thought about my arms.

What changed was not me. It was the shops.

Somewhere along the way the high street decided that anything with a proper sleeve was for the winter, and everything cut for summer came sleeveless or near enough. Rail after rail of it. As if a woman past sixty is not allowed to want her arms covered and to feel cool at the same time.

And once that is all there is, you stop expecting anything else. You buy the trousers because they are safe. You keep the cardigan on in the heat. Nobody says anything, which is rather the point.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong, and I think a lot of us have.

I had decided the choice was covered up and too hot, or cool and bare, one or the other, and that at my age I had better pick covered and simply be uncomfortable about it.

It turns out that was never true.

I have since paid proper attention to this, and a long sleeve does not have to mean heavy or hot. It is the weight of the thing, whether it is light enough to move with you, and the cut, whether it falls away from you or clings. Get those right and a covered arm is the most comfortable you will feel all day.

The same idea, a dress with proper sleeves, cut light and easy, in a print you actually like, reads completely differently. It reads as a decision. That is the whole difference, and it took me until 67 to work it out.

The dress is called the Emerson

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 Emerson. A long dress with sleeves, in a striking blue-and-white geometric print, little dots and stripes and blocks all mixed together rather cleverly. It falls long and easy, well past the knee, and the sleeves are the soft, light sort you forget you have on.

It is light and comfortable even with the sleeves, which after years of assuming covered had to mean hot mattered more than I expected. It moves with you rather than against you, never tight, never restrictive, and it skims straight past everything I would rather not discuss.

That is really all there is to it. It is not complicated. It is just a dress that somebody thought about.

What happened at the party

I wore it for the first time to a friend's garden party, with flat sandals and my good earrings.

Four women asked me where it was from. Four. One of them was Ann, who I have known since our children were at primary school and who has never once commented on anything I have worn.

She said I looked like I had made an effort for once. I have decided to take that as a compliment.

What I noticed more than the compliments, though, was that I forgot about it. I did not spend the afternoon tugging a sleeve down or wishing I had brought a cardigan. I sat in the sun, I ate a very large piece of cake, and I did not think about my arms once.

The next evening I put it straight back on for supper in the garden, and felt completely myself in it. That is the rarest sort of dress. The one you can wear to a party and then wear out to the shops, and feel right either way.

Three things I have learned since

One. The print does the talking. It is the sort people cross a room to ask about, so I do not have to say anything clever. The dress does all the work while I get on with my cake.

Two. You stop thinking about your arms. The sleeves simply remove the question. There is no tugging, no cardigan kept on in the heat, no catching sight of yourself and wishing. It is a small thing and it changes the whole day.

Three. It goes both ways. Flat sandals and earrings for a party, or exactly as it is for the shops. And when the evening cools it is already covered, so you are never caught out.

About the price

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

The Emerson is £34.95. It was £70.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because you can walk into any high street shop and pay more than that 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 before it turns.

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. One woman had written, "It covers my arms, it does not cling anywhere, and I have had compliments every single time." That was the one that decided it for me.

Then I ordered one for my sister 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 quietly stopped buying anything pretty because everything in the shops is sleeveless and you would rather your arms stayed covered, then it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look.

Not because a dress will change your life. It will not. But there is something in getting dressed in the morning 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 at the moment, and the middle sizes are the ones that go first, which I found out because the 16 was gone by the time I went back to tell a friend. And once the summer stock has sold through, that is it until next year.

I have not left my arms bare since.

Maggie