I have bought white blouses all my life. This is the first one I have written a letter about
I have bought white blouses all my life. This is the first one I have written a letter about
Six things the Celestine gets right that the others get wrong, from a customer who checked the stitching.
Maggie Whitfield · Customer · Cheshire · 5 min read
I am Maggie, I am 67, and I want to say at the start that I do not work for anybody and I have never sewn anything more ambitious than a button. What I have done is buy blouses, for forty years, and be let down by most of them.
The one I am writing about is called the Celestine, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I own it in two colours, a woman at my coffee morning owns it in three, and when the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Here is what forty years of buying taught me. A blouse is the easiest thing in the world to get almost right. The photograph shows you frills and flowers, and then the post brings you printed daisies that wash out flat, a button front that gapes the moment you sit down, and frills that make you look like you are conducting an orchestra. I have bought that blouse a dozen times under a dozen names.
Plain and reliable, or pretty and disappointing. Those seemed to be the blouse options at our age.
The Celestine is the first one I have owned that refuses both, and having gone over it like a suspicious woman goes over a bargain, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it arrived. I inspected it like a customs officer.
The flowers are stitched, not printed
Run your thumb over it and you can feel them. Little raised daisies and looping stems, white thread on white fabric, so the whole thing catches the light quietly instead of shouting across the room. Printed flowers are what let cheap blouses down, and there is not a printed flower on it.
White on white, raised so you can feel it. This is what the photograph undersells.
I assumed the flowers were printed until it arrived. They are stitched. It looks three times the price.
Linda K., MacclesfieldThe frill frames your face, not your bust
The frill runs down both sides of the V and falls into a soft ruffle at the centre, so the eye goes up towards your face, which is where you want it at our age. It is feminine without being fussy, and it dresses up a plain pair of trousers entirely on its own.
I wore it to a christening with plain navy trousers and felt properly dressed. The frill does all the work.
Barbara H., ChesterThree buttons, and not one more
The placket stops at mid-front, which sounds like a small thing and is actually the whole trick. Nothing gapes when you sit down, nothing pulls across the front, and there are not eleven little buttons to fumble with on a cold morning. Three, and you are dressed.
The V, the frill, and exactly three buttons. Count them.
No gaping when I sit down. I did not know a blouse could do that until this one.
Patricia W., WilmslowThe sleeves roll and stay rolled
Long sleeves for cool evenings, and they turn back into a neat wide cuff that stays put when you want them shorter. Two blouses in one, and no pushing a sleeve back up every five minutes while you are trying to do something with your hands.
I wear it rolled all day and down in the evening. The cuffs stay exactly where I put them.
Susan D., KnutsfordThe hem covers without tucking
It is cut to sit loose over your waistband, with a soft curved hem that covers what you want covered. No tucking in, no riding up, no arranging yourself when you stand. It hangs right on its own, which is more than I can say for most of my wardrobe.
It sits over my waistband and covers my hips without looking baggy. Exactly the length I always look for.
Janet R., AltrinchamFive colours that go with what you already own
White, navy, yellow, a soft blue and black, each with the same stitched flowers in its own tone. They all sit happily over the trousers and skirts already in your wardrobe, which is why the women who buy one tend to go back. I started with the white and went back for the navy.
Together on the rail. Choosing is the hardest part of the whole business.
I have the white and the navy and I am eyeing the yellow. They go with everything I own.
Maureen T., SaleThe Celestine, against the blouses you have been buying
You can find a frilly blouse for fifty pounds almost anywhere. I know, because I have bought a great many of them. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Printed flowers that wash out flat
A full button front that gapes when you sit
Frills that wear you, not the other way round
Sleeves that slide down all day
A hem that needs tucking and arranging
Raised stitched embroidery you can feel
Three buttons, placket ends mid-front, no gape
A frill that frames your face
Cuffs that roll and stay rolled
A curved hem that covers without tucking
About the price
The Celestine is £25.95 at the moment. It was £52.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that they are clearing the summer stock as the season turns, and once it has gone it is gone until next year. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that at that price I did not deliberate long over the navy, and that the popular colours were already thin in the middle sizes when I went back.
I also did what I imagine you are doing now and read the reviews before my first order. 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. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
Folded and ready to go back in the drawer. It has not stayed there long.
If you have ever wanted a blouse that looks special and behaves itself, this is the one I would put in your hands myself, while the colours are still in stock.
Maggie
CELESTINE | Embroidered Frill Blouse
- Raised stitched flowers, tone on tone, not printed
- Frilled V-neckline with a soft centre ruffle
- Three buttons only, nothing gapes
- Sleeves that roll to a neat cuff and stay
- Curved hem that covers without tucking
- Five colours, UK sizes 8/10 to 16/18
- FREE UK delivery & 100% happiness guarantee
Summer stock clearing now. The popular colours go first.