A letter from a reader

At 67, every outfit I owned ended in the same navy cardigan

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 a cardigan at my book club last week, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it all down properly.

It started with a photograph, of all things. My daughter was flicking through pictures on her phone from the last year or so. Christmas, a birthday, an afternoon in the garden. Then she laughed and turned the phone round to show me.

Mum, you are wearing that navy cardigan in every single one of these.

She was right. Eleven years I have had it. It lives on the back of the kitchen chair and it goes on over everything. The nice dress, the flowered blouse, the top I bought specially for my grandson's christening. Whatever I put on underneath, I finished it with the same navy cardigan, and every outfit in those photographs looked exactly the same.

I did not choose that. That is the part I want to be clear about. Nobody decides to wear the same cardigan for eleven years. It happens quietly, because it is there, and it goes with everything, until one day your daughter shows you a year of photographs and there it is in every one.

How it happens

Go and look at the cardigans in any high street shop. Navy, black, grey, beige. Rail after rail of them, all sold on the promise that they go with everything.

And that is exactly the trouble. A cardigan that goes with everything is a cardigan designed to disappear. You buy it because it is safe, and then because it is safe it goes on over every outfit you own, and every outfit you own becomes the same outfit.

Nobody warns you about that. The shops call it versatile. What it actually is, is invisible.

What I had wrong

I had always thought a cardigan's job was to keep out of the way. Cover the arms, keep the chill off, and let whatever is underneath do the talking.

It turns out that is backwards.

The cardigan is the top layer. It is most of what people actually see, and most of what ends up in the photograph. If that layer is a plain navy nothing, the whole outfit is a plain navy nothing, no matter how nice the dress underneath is.

Make the top layer the interesting one, and it works the other way round. Everything underneath can be as plain and comfortable as you like, and the whole thing still looks like a decision. It took me until 67 and one rather blunt daughter to work that out.

The cardigan is called the Hermione

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

The cardigan is called the Hermione. A long, open drape cardigan in a patchwork of blues, paisleys and little prints side by side, with soft teal bands running all the way down the front. It sounds busy written down, and in the wardrobe it is the least busy thing I own to actually wear, because it asks nothing of whatever is underneath.

There are no buttons and no fastenings. It simply falls open and drapes, so it never sits boxy or pulls across the middle the way a buttoned cardigan does. It is light, so there is no bulk under the arms, and it falls to the top of the thigh, which covers everything I would rather have covered. The sleeves stop just below the elbow with a neat turned back cuff, so they stay out of the washing up.

That is really all there is to it. It is not complicated. It is a cardigan somebody actually thought about.

What happened at book club

I wore it the first time to book club, over a plain cream top and my ordinary navy trousers, which is about as dull as an outfit gets.

Three women asked me about it before we had got anywhere near the book. One of them was Hazel, who I have known for twenty years and who has never once commented on anything I have worn.

She told me I looked like I had made an effort for once. I have decided to take that as a compliment.

What I noticed more than the compliments was that I forgot I had it on. There is nothing to fasten, nothing to tug straight, nothing riding up. I sat, I poured the coffee, I argued about a book I had not quite finished, and I did not think about what I was wearing once.

The next morning I put it straight back on over my gardening clothes, and it worked just as well over those. That is the rarest sort of cardigan. The one that dresses up a plain top for an evening, and then goes out to the runner beans the next day, and feels right both ways.

Three things I have learned since

One. My plainest clothes have all come back into use. The cream top and navy trousers I used to apologise for are suddenly an outfit, because the cardigan does all the work. I have stopped standing at the wardrobe wondering what goes with what. Everything goes under it.

Two. No buttons is a bigger thing than it sounds. There is nothing to gape when you sit down, nothing to strain across the middle, nothing to fiddle with. It just falls where it should and stays there, whatever size you are having that day.

Three. The sizing is honest. It runs from a UK 8/10 all the way to a 22/24, and it is the same relaxed shape the whole way up, not a different garment 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 Hermione is £35.95. It was £72.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because a cardigan that looks like this in a shop window would usually cost twice that and then some.

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. One woman had written, “I wore it over a black top and plain trousers and was asked about it twice in one afternoon. It makes an outfit out of nothing.” That was the one that decided it for me.

Then I ordered the green one 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.

Go and stand at your wardrobe and count how many of your outfits end in the same plain cardigan. If the answer is most of them, it is not the clothes underneath that need replacing. It is the layer on top, and that is a much cheaper problem to fix than a whole wardrobe.

Not because a cardigan will change your life. It will not. But there is something in looking at a photograph of yourself and not seeing the same navy blur 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. They do it in five colours, the blue, a rose, a red, a green and a yellow, and once the summer stock has gone it is gone until next year.

The navy one has gone to the charity shop.

Maggie