A letter from a reader

At 67, I stopped standing at the wardrobe wondering what goes with what

I have never written one of these before, and I nearly did not. But I have said this to enough friends now that it seemed easier to write it down.

Getting dressed had become the most tiring part of my morning. I would stand at the wardrobe holding a top against a pair of trousers, then a different top, then giving up and wearing the same safe combination I always did because at least I knew it went together. It is a small thing, but done every single day it wears you down.

It is not that I had nothing to wear. It is that nothing quite went with anything else.

And on a warm day it was worse, because half of what I owned was too heavy or too fussy to bear in the heat.

Then my sister turned up in a matching set

A soft linen two-piece, a little wooden-button top and matching shorts, and she looked cool and completely put together on a day I was wilting. What struck me was how easy she said it was, she had simply put on the two pieces and walked out of the door.

It is the Isolde, from a small British boutique called Manchester Boutique. The whole appeal is that somebody has already done the thinking. You put on the two pieces, and that is it, you are dressed, you match, and you look like you planned it. I ordered the khaki that evening.

What happened at the summer lunch

I wore the set to a garden lunch on the first really warm day.

Three women asked me what I had on before the coffees arrived. One of them was Ann, who I have known since our children were at primary school and who has never once commented on anything I have worn. She said I looked like I had made an effort for once, which I have decided to take as a compliment. And I had made no effort at all, which is rather the point.

Three things I have learned since

One. The thinking is done for you. The two pieces are made to go together, so getting dressed takes ten seconds and you still walk out looking coordinated. I had forgotten mornings could be that easy.

Two. The linen is genuinely cool. It is light and soft and breathes, so it is a pleasure to wear on a hot day rather than something to endure. The relaxed cut is kind and easy to move in.

Three. It is really more than one outfit. I wear the little top on its own with my own trousers all the time now, so the set has quietly turned into three or four outfits rather than one.

About the price

I will be honest, the price made me suspicious more than anything.

The Isolde set is £32.95. It was £66.00.

My first thought was that there had to be a catch, because that is the price of a single top in a lot of shops, let alone two matching pieces of proper linen.

There is no catch that I have found. It is a small boutique selling directly, and they run a summer sale to move the season's stock. I read the reviews before I ordered a second colour. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some sites, which if anything made me trust it more. The same things kept coming up. One woman had written, “So easy to just throw on and you look put together instantly, and the linen is lovely and cool. I have it in two colours now.” That was the one that decided it for me.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were having a cup of tea and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If getting dressed has quietly become a chore, if you are forever trying to build an outfit out of things that do not quite match, it is worth ten minutes of an evening to have a look.

Not because a set of clothes changes anything. It does not. But a morning where getting dressed is easy and you still like what you see is a small pleasure I had stopped expecting, and I would rather you did not stop expecting it either.

The sale is on now, it comes in six colours, and the middle sizes in the nicer shades are already going.

I do not stand at the wardrobe deliberating any more. I just put it on.

Maggie