A letter from a reader

At 67, I owned four pairs of leggings I could not leave the house in

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 my top at the car boot sale on Sunday, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

Here is the confession. I own four pairs of perfectly good leggings, black, navy, grey and a charcoal, and until June I had never worn a single one of them out of the house. Not to the shops, not to the school run, not to the car boot. Because nothing I owned was long enough to cover the bit of me I want covered.

So it was leggings with a cardigan tied round my waist like a woman at a festival, or proper trousers in a heatwave. I chose the trousers, and I sweltered.

Nobody decides that. The shops decide it, by making every top stop exactly where you would rather it carried on.

Then my sister turned up in one

Jean came for lunch in June in a long white blouse scattered with tiny blue flowers, over black leggings, with flat sandals, and I said, you cannot wear leggings to lunch, and she said, watch me. It came down to just above her knee, it swung from under the bust, and it covered exactly what leggings need covering, front and back. She looked cool and put together and she had not tied a single cardigan round anything.

It is called the Jeanne, 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, fully expecting to send it back.

I did not send it back.

What happened at the car boot

I wore it on Sunday over the black leggings, the ones from 2019 with the tags still on, and flat sandals.

Three different women asked me where it was from before I had bought a single thing. And my friend Sue told me I looked like I had somewhere nicer to be than a car boot, which I took in the spirit intended.

Here is what I keep coming back to. I did not tug at it once. Not walking, not bending for the box of paperbacks, not sitting on the wall with a tea. It swings from under the bust, it skims everything without clinging to any of it, and the print is pretty enough that it reads as an outfit rather than a cover-up.

It has been out five times in two weeks. Over the leggings, over white trousers, over the jeans I had stopped wearing because nothing went with them.

Three things I have learned since

One. Length is the whole trick. It comes to just above the knee, so it covers what leggings need covered, front and back, and it never rides up, because it swings instead of clinging.

Two. It is a blouse, not a smock. A soft V at the neck, sleeves to the elbow, and a swingy panel from under the bust, so it reads as pretty rather than practical, even though it is doing a very practical job.

Three. It makes the rest of your wardrobe wearable. Leggings, white trousers, old jeans, all suddenly have something to go with. Sizes from an 8/10 to an 18/20, the same easy shape all the way up.

About the price

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

The Jeanne is £34.95. It was £70.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because a top this pretty and this long is normally priced like a dress.

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, “Finally a top long enough to wear with leggings without a cardigan round my waist. Light, pretty, and it covers everything.” 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 own leggings you cannot leave the house in, it is not the leggings and it is not you. It is that nobody made you a top long enough. This is that top, and it costs less than the trousers you have been sweltering in instead.

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 leggings have been out. All four. It only took six years.

Maggie