A letter from a reader

At 67, I lined my boots up by the door and realised every single pair was black

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 my neighbour Val stopped me over the hedge to ask about my boots, of all things, and she was the third person in a week, so it seemed easier to write it down properly.

It starts with a sort-out. Last week I lined my boots up by the front door, the way you do when autumn arrives, and stood back and looked at them.

Five pairs. All black. Every boot I have bought in forty years has been black.

Not because I love black. Because black goes with everything, and that felt like the sensible answer for forty years. It took the sort-out to see what it had actually cost me. From October to March, my feet simply disappear into the season.

How it happens

Winter dressing shrinks, quietly, into a single rule. Do not clash. The coats are grey, the trousers are navy, and the boots are black, because black cannot clash with anything.

And the result is that in the greyest months of the year, when a bit of cheer would do the most good, we dress to match the weather.

What I had wrong

I thought colour was risky, and the older I got the riskier it felt. A red coat is a commitment. A bright dress is a conversation.

But here is what I had not considered. Your feet are the safest place in the entire outfit for colour. Everything else stays in the navy and grey you already own and love, and the boots do all the talking from down there. A wink of it under a trouser hem, not a broadcast.

Colour, at ankle height, is not a risk at all. It is a rumour.

The boots are called the Willow

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

The boots are called the Willow. A neat ankle boot in warm tan with a soft brushed finish, a leopard-print toe cap, and, my favourite part, a wine-red zip running down a cream stripe at the back, like a racing stripe for the school run. I appreciate that is a lot of sentence. On the foot it simply reads as a boot with a bit of life in it.

And they are not just a pretty toe. The footbed is properly cushioned, so the pressure stays off your heels and arches through a full morning of errands. The heel is a stable block at a sensible height, the sole grips on wet pavement, and the zip down the back means they go on and off without a struggle, sitting down, which at our age is not nothing.

What happened over the hedge

I wore them on the school-post-office-paper-shop circuit with my usual grey coat and jeans, feeling about eighty percent brave.

Val stopped me over the hedge before I reached the gate. The lady in the paper shop called them “very Judi Dench”, and I have chosen to receive that as the honour it is.

Three compliments in one circuit. My black boots have never once been mentioned in forty years of service.

Three things I have learned since

One. Tan goes with more than black does. I did not believe this either. But the warm tan sits happily with grey, navy, denim, cream and every autumn colour there is, and it lifts them instead of anchoring them.

Two. The back zip is the quiet luxury. Down the stairs, boots by the chair, zip, done. No hopping in the hallway, no shoehorn diplomacy. And it happens to be the prettiest part of the boot as you walk away.

Three. There is a whole colourful collection. It turns out these come from a winter collection of nineteen heels and boots in actual colours, reds and purples and prints, which I am treating as dangerous information. They run from a UK 3 to an 8.5.

About the price

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

The Willow boots are £39.95. They were £80.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that boots under forty pounds would be stiff, squeaky and done by Christmas. They are not. The brushed finish is soft, the toe cap is neatly set, the zip runs smoothly, and the cushioning underfoot is the real thing rather than a thin promise. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and this is the sale price on their first autumn 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, “I have worn black boots my whole life and these get me stopped at the shops. On and off in seconds with the back zip and comfortable all day.” 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 pot of tea and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If your boot row by the door is also entirely black, nothing is wrong with you. You have just been obeying a rule nobody actually made. Break it at ankle height first. It is the cheapest, safest, most complimented place to start, and it is under forty pounds at the moment.

Not because a pair of boots will change your life. They will not. But there is something in being stopped over a hedge, in the greyest week of the year, because your feet look cheerful, that I had quietly assumed was behind me. It is not.

Two practical things. The sale is on at the moment, and the first autumn stock is already going. UK 3 to 8.5, nineteen styles in the collection, and once this batch is gone it is gone before the proper boot weather even arrives.

The black boots have been given the winter off. They have earned it.

Maggie