I am 68 and the first cardigan I have ever written a letter about was standing next to me at the Christmas lights switch-on in Otley.
I am 68 and the first cardigan I have ever written a letter about was standing next to me at the Christmas lights switch-on in Otley.
Six things these two hooded cardigans get right that fifty years of cardigans never did, from a woman who spent every November choosing between looking nice and keeping the rain off her head.
Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read
I had better say who is talking first. I am Pat, I am 68, and I live in Leeds with my husband Brian and his spaniel Wilf. I have bought cardigans for fifty years, more of them than I would admit to Brian, and I have never once thought one was worth writing to anybody about. Well. I have changed my mind, and it took a stranger in the drizzle to change it.
The cardigans I am writing about are from the hooded cardigan collection at Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly finding women like me the things we did not know we were allowed to have for a few years now. They are button-up cardigans with a hood, and there are seventeen colours. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
I first saw one at the Christmas lights switch-on in Otley last November. Brian likes to get there an hour early and stand at the barrier in the market place, so we did, in the cold, with a flask. Ten minutes before the countdown it started to drizzle. Every woman round me did what I did, which was put a carrier bag on her head or hunch down into her collar. The woman beside me just reached back, pulled up a hood, tightened the strings and carried on talking. When it stopped she put it down again and it lay flat behind her shoulders as if it had never been up. It was not a coat and it was not one of those zip-up things the grandsons wear. It was a proper olive green cardigan, buttons down the front, a nice V at the neck, with a hood. Her name was Hilary, and she told me where it was from while the lights came on. Read on.
The green one, out in Otley market place on a cold evening. Brian took this. Hood down, for now.
Here is what fifty years of buying cardigans taught me. They come in two piles. The nice ones, buttons and a V-neck, that look right with a blouse and are no use at all the minute it rains. And the practical ones, a fleece or a zip-up top with a hood, that keep you dry and make you look like you are off to clear the gutters.
A cardigan was either something you looked nice in indoors, or something you put up with outdoors. I had given up expecting one that could do both in a Yorkshire November.
These are the first I have owned that do. I have worn the two of them through a whole winter now, and it comes down to six things.
The morning they came, still in their tissue. The green one for me, the brown one because Hilary said so.
It is a proper cardigan with a hood, not a hoodie
The green one is called the Marjorie. It is a fine, smooth knit, long sleeves, a relaxed shape that comes down to the hip, and five buttons down the front on a neat flat band, the last one sitting on the ribbing at the hem. There is no zip, no logo across the chest, nothing sporty about it. Over a cream top with a pair of navy trousers it looks like a cardigan, because it is one. The hood is simply there when you want it.
On the kitchen table after a wash. The V, the buttons, the ribbing at the bottom.
I have never liked hoodies on a woman my age but this is a cardigan first. Buttons, a V-neck, and a hood I can use. Exactly what I wanted.
Kathleen M., SpaldingThe hood sits straight onto the V, so it lies flat when it is down
This is the part I looked at most when I got them home. There is no collar and no thick band round the neck. The hood is joined straight onto the V, and its edge is finished with a narrow flat band that runs down both sides of the V and on into the buttons, one neat line from the top of the hood to the hem. So when the hood is down it lies flat behind your shoulders and there is nothing bunched up round your neck under a coat. The second one is the Nora, a warm brown, and it is made exactly the same way.
The brown one on my chair. You can see the hood running straight into the V.
The hood is not bulky at all. I wear it down most of the time and you would hardly know it was there until you need it.
Margaret T., HolbeachThe strings pull it in when the drizzle comes
Two drawstrings come out of the edge of the hood, one each side. Pull them and the hood comes in round your face and stays put, which is exactly what Hilary did at the barrier. The boutique says it keeps the breeze off when you are out and about, and I will vouch for that from the walk to the car, the walk round the park with Wilf, and the dash to the bins in the dark. It is a cardigan, not a raincoat, so I would not stand in a downpour in it, but for the drizzle we get nine days out of ten it has taken the place of my rain hat.
I have stopped taking an umbrella to walk the dog. Hood up, strings pulled, and off we go.
Brenda K., WisbechButtoned up or worn open, both look right
Five buttons means you choose. Done all the way up on a cold morning it is snug and neat. Left open over a blouse in a warm shop or at our June’s, it hangs straight down at the front and looks like I meant it. With the zip-up tops I have owned it was always all or nothing, and halfway looked like I had got dressed in a hurry.
I wear it buttoned on the school run and open in the house. It looks smart either way, which I cannot say for anything else I own.
Sandra L., WhittleseySoft and light enough to go under a coat
It is soft and lightweight, the boutique’s words and mine, so I can wear it all day without feeling bundled up, and on a properly cold night it goes under my winter coat with the hood pulled out over the collar. The cuffs and the hem are ribbed, and after a winter of wear and washes mine still sit where they should and the shape has held. It comes down to the hip, long enough to cover what I want covered, short enough not to get in the way.
Light enough to wear in the house and it goes under my coat without any bulk. The ribbing at the bottom has kept its shape.
Jean F., ChatterisSeventeen colours, every one the same price
There are seventeen colours in the collection, all at the same price. Olive green and brown for me, but also navy, black, two greys, a burgundy, a cream, a beige, a soft lilac, a coral, a yellow, a pink, a blue, a light green and a white. Sizes go from a UK 8 to a UK 16. Hilary has the green and the brown, the same as me now. I have promised our June the lilac one for Christmas, which is my Christmas shopping started in October for the first time in my life.
The pair of them on the pegs in our hall. Brian has been told they are not his.
Bought the navy, went back for the burgundy a fortnight later. Same lovely cardigan, and I like having the choice of colour.
Pauline R., CrowlandThese cardigans, against the ones you have been making do with
You can carry on with a nice cardigan and a carrier bag on your head, or a zip-up hoodie that never looked right, like I did for fifty years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Look nice, no use when it rains
Or a hood that comes with a zip and a sporty look
Bulky collar under a coat
All buttoned or nothing
A handful of colours, if that
A proper button-up cardigan with a hood
Drawstring hood for the drizzle
Hood joins the V and lies flat when down
Five buttons, wear it done up or open
Seventeen colours, same price
About the price
Every colour is £36.95, down from £74.00, in every size from UK 8 to UK 16.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these are in their sale while the first autumn stock goes, and once a colour sells through in a size, that one is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that I have paid more than £74.00 for a cardigan in a department store that was no use the first time it rained, so £36.95 for one I have worn all winter made it an easy yes. Twice.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
If you have spent every winter choosing between looking nice and keeping the rain off your head, this is where I would start. Have a look at the colours before somebody else takes your favourite, because the first autumn stock will not wait. And if you are at the barrier in Otley market place this year and the drizzle comes, look for the two women in hoods who are still smiling. That will be Hilary and me.
Pat
THE HOODED CARDIGAN COLLECTION
- Button-up cardigan with a drawstring hood
- V-neck, hood lies flat when down
- Soft and lightweight, ribbed cuffs and hem
- Relaxed fit, hip length
- Seventeen colours, UK 8 to UK 16
- Free UK delivery
Sale on now. The first autumn stock is already going.