A letter from a reader

At 67, I opened my wardrobe and realised I had plenty of clothes and nothing that actually went together

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 four different women asked me about this outfit at a birthday lunch a fortnight ago, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

It started one morning in June. I was going out for lunch, I stood in front of a full wardrobe, and I could not put together a single outfit I felt right in. Tops that did not go with the trousers. Trousers that did not go with anything.

A wardrobe full of clothes, and nothing to wear. Every woman I know understands that sentence.

I ended up in the same navy trousers and loose top I always fall back on, feeling perfectly invisible, and I thought, there has to be an easier way than this.

I did not choose that. Nobody sets out to own a wardrobe full of odd pieces. It happens quietly, one sensible separate at a time, until one day you cannot make an outfit out of any of it.

How it happens

I used to think putting an outfit together was a skill I had somehow missed out on.

What changed was realising it was not me. It was the way we are sold clothes.

Everything on the high street is sold as a separate. A top here, a pair of trousers there, all of it in slightly different shades and shapes that never quite talk to each other. You get home, you try to make outfits out of them, and half of it just sits in the drawer because nothing goes.

And once getting dressed is a puzzle you lose every morning, you stop bothering. You reach for the same safe, dull thing, not because you like it but because at least it is a decision you do not have to make.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong, and I think a lot of us have.

I thought looking pulled-together took effort, and time, and an eye I did not have. So I gave up on it.

It turns out the trick was never effort. It was buying the top and the trousers already matched, as one thing, so the decision is made for you.

A set that is designed to go together does all the work a stylist would. You put it on, and you look like you thought about it, when the truth is you did not have to think at all. That is the whole difference, and it took me until 67 to work it out.

The set is called the Gwendolyn

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

It is called the Gwendolyn, and it is a matching set. A soft green shirt with a pretty floral print, and a pair of relaxed trousers in the same green, made to be worn together. It comes in a good few colours, which I will come back to.

It is light and it breathes, which in the last few weeks has mattered more than I expected. The trousers have a soft elasticated waist that gives with you, so there is no digging in after lunch, and the whole thing is relaxed and drapes rather than clings. And yet it looks smart. Nobody would ever guess how comfortable it actually is.

That is really all there is to it. It is not complicated. It is just an outfit somebody thought about, so I do not have to.

What happened at the birthday lunch

I wore it for the first time to my friend's birthday lunch, with my good sandals and a long necklace.

Four women asked me where it was from. Four. 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 really made an effort. I have decided to take that as a compliment.

What I noticed more than the compliments, though, was that I forgot about it. I did not spend the lunch tugging at anything or wondering whether it suited me. I sat down, I had a proper pudding, and I did not think about what I had on once.

The next morning I put it straight back on to potter about in the garden, and felt completely myself in it. That is the rarest sort of outfit. The one you can wear to something and then wear to do the watering, and feel right either way.

Three things I have learned since

One. The sizing is honest. It runs from a UK 8 all the way to a 22 to 24, and it is the same easy cut the whole way up, not a different shape once you pass a certain number. I wish more places would bother with that.

Two. One decision beats ten. Because the two pieces already match, getting dressed stopped being a puzzle. I reach for it precisely because it asks nothing of me first thing in the morning.

Three. It does more than one job. Worn together it is an outfit for a lunch. Split up, the shirt goes with my white trousers and the green trousers go with half the tops I own. So it is really several outfits, not one.

About the price

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

The Gwendolyn set is £32.95. It was £66.00. That is for both pieces, the shirt and the trousers together.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because you can pay more than that on the high street for a single top that will be misshapen by August.

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 shift the season's stock before it turns.

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. Real people, mixed opinions, mostly very good.

Then I ordered a second colour as well.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat in the garden and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you have a wardrobe full of separates that never quite go together, and you have quietly given up on feeling put-together because it is too much like hard work in the morning, then it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look.

Not because an outfit will change your life. It will not. But there is something in getting dressed in the morning and recognising yourself that I had quietly given up on, and I would rather you did not give up on it too.

Two practical things. The sale is on at the moment, and the middle sizes are the ones that go first, which I found out because the size I wanted in a second colour was gone by the time I went back for it. And once the summer stock has sold through, that is it until next year.

Getting dressed is one decision now, and I look better for it.

Maggie