A letter from a reader

At 67, I had a summer of weddings ahead and not one thing in my wardrobe with any colour or any sleeves

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 dress at a wedding a fortnight ago, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

It started when the invitations began arriving. Two weddings, a christening and a big birthday, all in one summer, and I stood in front of my wardrobe and realised I had absolutely nothing to wear to any of them.

Plenty of dresses. Every one of them either sleeveless, or beige, or both.

And the sleeveless ones were out, because I had long since stopped wanting my arms on show at a lunch, let alone in the wedding photographs.

I did not choose that. Nobody sets out to own a wardrobe with no colour and no coverage in it. It happens quietly, one safe, sleeveless, forgettable dress at a time.

How it happens

Go and look for an occasion dress with sleeves that is not also dreary, and you will see what I mean.

The shops seem to think that if you want your arms covered you must also want to disappear. So the sleeved dresses come in navy, or black, or a sort of apologetic grey, cut like something you would wear to give a difficult speech.

And the pretty, colourful ones are all sleeveless, or strappy, cut for somebody who has not yet thought about the tops of her arms.

So you give up, buy the beige sleeveless thing again, and drape a cardigan over it for the photographs.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong. I had decided that colour and coverage could not come in the same dress, not at my age.

It turns out they can. This one is a proper, joyful floral, all reds and corals and a flash of teal, and it has long, floaty chiffon sleeves with a pretty ruffled cuff. The sleeves cover the tops of the arms completely, so there is no cardigan and no second thought, and yet the whole thing feels light and celebratory rather than covered-up.

Colour and sleeves, in the same dress. That is the combination I had assumed did not exist, and it took me until 67 to find it.

The dress is called the Margot

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

The dress is called the Margot. A flowing chiffon midi in a bold, painterly floral on a navy ground, with long sheer sleeves, a ruffled cuff and a soft tiered hem that sits below the knee. There are other prints as well, which I will come back to.

It is light and it moves beautifully, the chiffon skimming rather than clinging, which after years of things that pulled where I did not want them to felt like a small revelation. It covers what I like covered, it does not crease the moment you sit down, and the colour does something to your face that beige never has.

That is really all there is to it. It is not complicated. It is just an occasion dress that somebody actually thought about.

What happened at the wedding

I wore it for the first time to the wedding, with nude heels and my good earrings.

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 wonderful. 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 day tugging at a hem or reaching for a cardigan. I stood for the photographs without folding my arms, and I danced a little, and I did not think about what I had on once.

I have since worn it to a lunch with flat sandals, and it was just as happy dressed down. That is the rarest sort of dress. The one you can wear to a wedding and then to a lunch, and feel right either way.

Three things I have learned since

One. Sleeves change everything. A proper long, floaty sleeve means no cardigan, no folded arms in the photos, and no second thought all day. I had forgotten what that freedom felt like.

Two. Chiffon is kind. It skims straight over everything rather than clinging, and it moves when you move, so you feel graceful rather than wrapped up.

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

About the price

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

The Margot is £32.95. It was £60.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because you can pay a great deal more than that on the high street for an occasion dress you will wear once.

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 had a look at the other prints for the next wedding.

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 summer of occasions ahead and a wardrobe of sleeveless, colourless things you do not feel like yourself in, then it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look.

Not because a dress will change your life. It will not. But there is something in walking into a room feeling like yourself, arms and all, 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. And once the summer stock has sold through, that is it until next year.

I have not folded my arms in a photograph since.

Maggie