A letter from a reader

At 67, I refused to pack my dresses away for winter

There is a ritual in my house every September. The dresses go into the loft, the trousers come down, and I spend the next six months dressed like a woman waiting for a delivery.

My mother did it, I copied her, and I never once questioned it until last Thursday, at coffee morning, when the woman beside me looked at my dress, then at the window, then back at my dress, and asked the question everyone else was thinking.

Aren’t you cold in that, love?

I was not cold. I was, and I say this with some satisfaction, the warmest woman at the table. And by the time I had explained why, three of them had asked where the dress was from, and one had written it on the back of her shopping list.

How it happens

Somewhere along the way, we all agreed that dresses are for summer. The first cold morning arrives, the dresses get packed away, and we surrender to the trouser months.

And the trouser months all look the same. The same trousers, the same jumper, the same coat, every day until spring. We do not choose it so much as give in to it, one grey Tuesday at a time.

Meanwhile the dresses, the prettiest things we own, sit in the loft doing nothing for half the year. It is a terrible arrangement and nobody remembers agreeing to it.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong. I thought a dress was one layer, and one layer is a summer outfit. Cold legs, cold arms, done by October.

But a dress is not one layer. It is the middle of three. Cardigan over it. Thick tights and ankle boots under it. And suddenly it is the warmest, easiest outfit I own, because the draught cannot get up a pair of woolly tights the way it whistles up a trouser leg.

Three things that cannot clash, on in two minutes, and everyone assumes you have made an effort. Trousers never once did that for me.

Mine is the blue

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

It is called the Georgina, and mine is the deep blue with tiny white flowers, which reads lovely and rich against all the greys and burgundies of this time of year. They do it in four prints, and I will come back to that.

The details are what make it. Soft little pleats fall from the neckline, so it drapes over the middle instead of clinging to it. The neckline is a gentle scoop, the sleeves are short so a cardigan sits over them without bunching, and there is a bit of stretch in the fabric and not a single zip or button to fight with. It falls to the knee, which is exactly where tights take over.

What happened at coffee morning

I wore it with my burgundy cardigan, thick tights and brown boots, and I want to repeat that I was there for the coffee, not to be looked at.

But the questions started with whether I was cold, and ended with three women writing down the name of a boutique. My friend Sandra, who has worn trousers since the miners were out, said she might try a dress again. I consider that my finest work of the autumn.

Three things I have learned since

One. Tights change everything. With proper tights and boots, a knee-length dress is warmer than trousers, and I will argue this at any table.

Two. Short sleeves are the trick. They disappear under any cardigan without bunching, so the dress works with every cardigan I already own.

Three. It asks nothing of me. A bit of stretch, no zip, no buttons, no ironing to speak of. It goes on like a nightie and looks like an occasion.

About the price

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

The Georgina is £26.95 at the moment. It was £50.00.

I have spent more than that on a jumper I did not like by November. For a dress that now goes out several times a week, three seasons of the year, it is the best-working thing in my wardrobe by a mile.

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, “I wear mine with a cardigan and boots and get more compliments in October than I ever did in July.” That was the one that decided it for me.

They do four prints, and I am eyeing the red poppies for best. Old habits.

What I would tell you if we were friends

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

Do not pack the dresses away this year. A dress with a cardigan and tights is not brave, it is not dressy, it is just warmer and prettier than the trousers you were about to surrender to. And if the loft has already claimed yours, this one is where I would start again.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and the first autumn stock is already going, so the popular prints and the middle sizes disappear first. It comes in sizes 8 to 20.

The dresses are staying downstairs this winter. The trousers can have the loft.

Maggie