A letter from a reader

At 68, my around-the-house clothes had quietly become a disgrace

What I wear inside my own four walls has never been anybody's business but mine. Which is exactly how it got so bad.

I am not one for writing to shops. But three different women asked me about this set at the garden centre on Sunday, and I have now explained it enough times that writing it down once seemed the sensible option.

Here is an honest accounting. Like most women I know, I ran two wardrobes. The one for being seen, kept respectable. And the one for being comfortable, which nobody was ever supposed to see.

The comfortable one was a disgrace, and I knew it.

Leggings gone at the knee. A fleece from a garden centre that closed in 2011. My husband's old jumper, and he has been gone eight years, so that tells you how current the collection was. Comfortable, every stitch of it, and not one item I would answer the door in without a quick calculation.

Nobody plans that second wardrobe. That is the bit worth saying plainly. It assembles itself out of retired clothes, one demotion at a time, until the most comfortable things you own are the ones you hide in.

The arrangement nobody questions

The shops sell us clothes for going out and nightwear for going to bed, and for the four hours of an evening in between, apparently we are meant to wear the rags.

And those hours are not nothing. They are the fire on, the kettle, the crossword, the phone call with your sister. A quarter of your waking life, spent dressed like a woman who lost a bet.

We would never accept that standard anywhere else in the day. We accept it at home because nobody is looking. Except the doorbell has never once checked whether I was ready.

What I had wrong

I thought comfortable and presentable were different wardrobes. One or the other, pick your hours.

It turns out that is backwards.

The trick is nothing cleverer than matching. A soft top and soft trousers in the same colour read as an outfit, chosen on purpose, in a way the same two pieces in different colours never will. The comfort is identical. The effect is night and day.

The set is called the Rosamel

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

The set is called the Rosamel. A long sleeved top and trousers in a dusty blue, matte and plain on the outside, and lined all through with a white plush that you can see peeping at the cuffs. It is the sort of soft you check twice.

The top comes down well past the hip with a curved hem, so nothing rides up when you reach for the top shelf. The trousers have an elastic waist with a proper drawstring, so they fit like they were measured on you rather than hoping for the best. And the ankles are cuffed, so the legs do not drag or flap. On a cold evening with the fire on, being brushed soft on the inside is the whole argument.

That is the whole of it. It is not complicated. It is house clothes somebody finally took seriously.

What happened at the garden centre

Here is the test it passed that no fleece of mine ever has. On Sunday morning I was in it, comfortable as a cat, and I needed compost. I looked down, decided I was perfectly decent, and went out as I was.

Three different women asked me about it among the bulbs. One of them was Edna, who has run the plant stall at church for as long as anyone can remember and does not hand out remarks lightly.

She asked if I was off somewhere nice. I was holding a bag of compost. From Edna, that is a medal.

What I notice most, though, is the evenings. The doorbell went twice this week, once the parcel man, once my neighbour after her casserole dish, and both times I simply answered the door. No calculation, no grabbing a cardigan off the hook to hide behind. It is a small freedom and it is worth the money on its own.

Three things worth knowing

One. Matching is the whole trick. Same softness as the old leggings-and-fleece arrangement, entirely different woman in the mirror. It reads as a decision, not a surrender.

Two. The lining earns its keep from October. Brushed soft all through, so it is the warm thing you reach for at six o'clock when the heating debate starts. Light enough that you are not sweltering by eight.

Three. The sizing is honest. Elastic waist, drawstring, relaxed cut, from a UK 8/10 to a 20/22, the same the whole way up. And fourteen colours, so the second one, and there will be a second one, can be different.

About the price

I am careful with money and I will not pretend otherwise, so the price was the first thing I checked.

The Rosamel is £48.95. It was £98.00.

That is two pieces, top and trousers, both lined, so before you compare it with a single jumper, halve it. Call it under twenty five pounds a garment for the things you will wear more hours than anything else you own. On a cost per wear basis my funeral coat should be embarrassed.

They are a small boutique selling directly, no department store taking a slice in the middle, and this is the launch price on their first autumn stock.

I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before ordering. Just over three hundred of them at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people, so I read on. One woman had written, “Softest thing I own and I do not have to hide when the doorbell goes. I have ordered a second colour for washing days.” That settled it.

If you were stood at my kitchen table

I would put the kettle on and say this.

Go and look honestly at what you wore last night between tea and bed. If it would not survive an unexpected visitor, you are running the two-wardrobe arrangement too, and it is costing you a quarter of your day feeling like the before photograph.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and the first autumn stock is already going. Fourteen colours, UK 8/10 to 20/22, and once this batch has gone it has gone before the cold evenings properly set in.

I answered the door twice this week without a flicker.

Pat