A letter from a reader

At 67, I have given up on scarves, and I have never been warmer

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 three different women asked me about a jumper at the Wednesday coffee morning, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

First, an audit I did last week that I suspect you could do too. I own eleven scarves. Four live in a drawer, three live in coat sleeves, one lives at the bottom of my handbag, and at least three have been left in cafés over the years and live wherever lost scarves go.

Forty years of tying, re-tying, adjusting and losing. All to patch one draughty inch between collar and chin.

Because that is all a scarf is, when you think about it. A patch. The cold gets in at the gap where your coat stops and your chin starts, and every autumn we wind a metre of fabric round the problem and call it an accessory.

How it happens

The jumpers most of us own stop at the collarbone. Crew necks, V-necks, cardigans, all of them leaving that inch of neck to fend for itself. So the scarf gets drafted in, every single day, from October to April.

And the scarf, as established, has plans of its own. It loosens. It slides. It dangles in your soup. It stays behind in cafés with a better view.

What I had wrong

I thought polo necks were for arty types and newsreaders, and I assumed they would feel like being gently strangled all day.

This one taught me otherwise on both counts. The neck is knitted soft and folds over once, so it sits like a gentle collar rather than a grip. It keeps that draughty gap warm from breakfast to bedtime, with nothing to tie, nothing to adjust, and nothing to leave behind. The scarf, it turns out, was compensating for the jumper all along.

The jumper is called the Rosamine

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

The jumper is called the Rosamine, a relaxed polo neck in a soft, gently ribbed knit. What the label calls a turtleneck and my mother would have called a polo neck. The ribbing runs across the body and down the sleeves, which sounds like nothing and is actually the whole trick, because it catches the light and makes it look a good deal dearer than it is.

It is cut long, with a deep ribbed hem and a little slit at each side, so it drapes over the hips and sits slightly longer at the back, covering everything one wants covered. The fit is relaxed the whole way down. Nothing clings, nothing rides up, and the sleeves end in proper long cuffs that stay put.

What happened at the coffee morning

I wore the black one to the Wednesday coffee morning, over rust trousers, no scarf, no fuss.

Three women asked me about it before the urn had boiled. And Barbara, who notices everything and compliments nothing, looked me over and asked if I had been somewhere special beforehand.

I had been to the bins. I chose not to say so.

What I noticed more than the compliments was my neck. Warm, all morning, without once thinking about it. No tying in the hallway, no re-tying in the porch, no scarf slipping into my coffee. I had forgotten autumn could be this uncomplicated.

Three things I have learned since

One. A black polo neck upgrades everything it touches. Jeans look intentional. A plain skirt looks like an outfit. Under every coat I own it looks like I planned the whole thing, and the neat neck frames your face better than any necklace I have bothered with.

Two. The length is doing quiet work. The deep ribbed hem drapes over the hips, sits a little longer at the back, and never needs tugging down. Relaxed everywhere you want it relaxed, tidy everywhere you want it tidy.

Three. Nine colours, and that is a rabbit hole. The black is the workhorse, but there is a cream, a wine red, a green, and I am already eyeing the wine red for Christmas. They run from a UK 8 to an 18, in the same relaxed shape throughout.

About the price

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

The Rosamine is £32.95. It was £66.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that a polo neck at that price would be thin as a vest and itchy at the neck, which is the one place a polo neck cannot afford to be itchy. It is neither. The knit is soft with proper weight to it, the ribbing is neat and even, and the neck is the gentlest part of the whole thing. 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 not worn a scarf since it arrived. The neck is soft, not tight, and I look smarter at the school run than I did at my own retirement do.” 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 you are also forty years deep in scarves, tying and re-tying and leaving them in cafés, stop treating the draughty gap as a fact of life. It is a jumper problem, and somebody has solved it, softly, in nine colours, for about thirty pounds.

Not because a polo neck will change your life. It will not. But there is something in being warm to the chin all day, and being asked if you have been somewhere special when you have been to the bins, that I had quietly assumed cost a great deal more than this.

Two practical things. The sale is on at the moment, and the first autumn stock is already going. Nine colours, UK 8 to 18, and once this batch is gone it is gone before the proper cold even arrives.

The scarves can stay in the drawer. My neck has been taken care of at the source.

Maggie