A letter from a reader

At 67, I had a drawer full of bras I hated and wore one of them every day

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 certainly not in the habit of discussing my underwear drawer with strangers.

But three different women asked me about my top at the garden centre café on Saturday, and I have now explained it enough times, in a lowered voice, that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

Here is the confession. I have a drawer full of bras I hate, and for thirty years I wore one of them every single day. Wires that dig by eleven. Straps that wander out of every summer top you own. Marks by teatime. And the whole daily ceremony of hooking the thing up behind your back with your arms bent the wrong way.

Somewhere along the line I stopped wearing anything light, or low, or lovely, because something underneath always showed.

Nobody decides that. The underwear shops decide it for you, by selling you a choice between wired and marked, or unsupported and worried, and calling it a range.

Then Sue took her shirt off at Pilates

Well, her overshirt. It was warm, and she peeled it off, and underneath was a neat black top with a square neck and wide straps, and I said, that is smart, and she said, quietly, it has the bra in it. No wire, no hooks, one piece. She had been wearing it for a month and I had not noticed a thing, which of course was the point.

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

I did not send it back. I ordered the grey a week later.

What happened at the café

I wore it to the garden centre under a linen shirt, open, on the hottest Saturday of the year.

Three different women asked me about it before the scones arrived, and one of them leaned in and asked the real question, and I told her. And Sue, who started all this, said I looked cooler than the rest of the table, which in that heat was the entire point.

Here is what I keep coming back to. I did not think about a strap once all day. Not one. There was nothing to hitch up, nothing to hook, nothing showing, and nothing digging by eleven. It holds you, and it looks like a top, and it does both quietly.

Three things I have learned since

One. Wide straps hide everything. Two fingers wide and flat, they sit where a bra strap would sit and stay there, so nothing wanders out of a sleeveless top ever again.

Two. The square neck is the clever bit. It sits high enough to be worn on its own or under an open shirt, and it looks like a proper top, not something that escaped from the drawer.

Three. It comes down to the hip. So it smooths over your waistband instead of stopping short of it, and it works under a cardigan as easily as it works with linen trousers on a hot day. Eight colours, an 8/10 to a 20/22, and no hooks anywhere.

About the price

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

The Marianne is £24.95. It was £50.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because a decent bra alone costs more than that, never mind a top with one in it.

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 move 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. One woman had written, “No wires, no hooks, no straps showing, and it looks like a proper top. I have bought four.” That was the one that decided it for me.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sitting in the garden with a cup of tea and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you have a drawer full of bras you hate, it is not because you have not found the right one. It is because the right one was never in that drawer. It is a top, and it costs less than the last bra you bought and did not like either.

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

The drawer is still full. I have not opened it since June.

Maggie