I stopped buying dresses with a detail on them ten years ago. This is a letter about the one that got the detail right
I stopped buying dresses with a detail on them ten years ago. This is a letter about the one that got the detail right
Six things the Marietta gets right that dresses with a detail get wrong, from a woman who had gone plain on purpose.
Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read
I am 68, I keep an allotment, and I have never sold a dress in my life. What I have done is buy them, for forty years, and about ten years ago I stopped buying anything with a detail on it, because every detail I tried was either for a woman half my age or looked like it had been stuck on in a hurry. So this is not a review. It is a woman who had gone plain on purpose, saying she has found the exception, and saying why.
The dress I am writing about is called the Marietta, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I first saw it on a woman two ahead of me in the post office queue, and when the boutique later 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, including about the length, which I will come to.
Here is what forty years of dresses taught me about details. They come in two piles. The pile with something on it, a frill, a bow, a print, which on a woman of 68 reads as trying too hard, and usually sits exactly where you do not want eyes. And the plain pile, which is safe, and which I have lived in for ten years, and which makes a woman look like she has stopped bothering. Somewhere around sixty I picked the plain pile and called it taste.
A detail that was for somebody else, or no detail at all. For ten years I chose none, and called it taste.
The Marietta is the first dress I have owned with a detail on it that refuses both piles, and having worn it to the post office, the garden centre and a christening lunch, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it arrived. Ivory, a row of little beaded buttons, and three roses at each wrist. I said out loud, that is a lot of dress. It is not, as it turns out.
It falls straight from the shoulders, and there is no waist
A plain round neck, then it hangs straight and widens a little to the hem, with no seam, no dart, no belt, and nothing to sit on the middle. Sit down, stand up, bend for a parcel. Nothing pulls and nothing announces anything.
No waist, no seam on my middle, and it still looks like a dress somebody designed. That is rare.
Carol R., WakefieldThe sleeves are long and full, and cover the arms completely
Big soft sleeves, full through the forearm, gathered in at the wrist. The tops of my arms are nobody’s business at 68, and these make the point without looking like a cover-up. They look like the reason you bought it, not the thing you are hiding.
The sleeves are the whole dress. Full, soft, cover my arms, and people comment on them rather than on me.
Diane M., HarrogateThe roses are at the wrist, not across the chest
Three fabric roses round each cuff, like a little corsage. That is the detail, and it is the right detail, because it sits where you want eyes, at the hands, and not where you do not. The woman in the post office queue was asked about them twice before she reached the counter. I was one of the two.
The roses at the cuff. I thought they would be too much. They are exactly enough.
The roses at the cuffs get a comment every single time. Pretty without being girly, and they sit at the wrist where I want them.
Patricia L., HuddersfieldThe buttons are decoration, so it goes over your head
A row of little beaded buttons runs from the neck to the hem, and not one of them undoes, which is the point. Nothing to do up, nothing to gape, no zip at the back to reach for. Over the head and done. The buttons just make the front look finished.
The beaded buttons down the front. Not one of them opens, and I have never been so pleased about a button.
Over the head in one go, nothing to fasten, and the beaded buttons make it look like a proper dress. Clever.
Linda K., BradfordIt is short, and it works over leggings
I will be honest, because I said I would. It sits above the knee, which is shorter than I usually go. So I wear it the way the woman in the queue wore it, over plain black leggings with flat shoes, and that is how it looks right on a woman my age. It is light and textured and it does not need the iron, which over leggings is the easiest outfit I own.
Short, so I wear it over leggings, and it is the easiest smart outfit I have. No ironing. Out of the wash and on.
Janet S., YorkSeven colours, XS to 2XL
The ivory I own, a navy, a blush pink, a sand, a chocolate brown, a black and an olive green, the same shape in every one, from an XS to a 2XL. I went back for the navy. The woman from the post office owns three, and I have now seen her in two of them.
Three of the seven on the bed. Same dress, same roses, three different post offices.
Bought the ivory, went back for the navy. Same fit in both, and I wear them more than anything else I own.
Maureen T., SheffieldThe Marietta, against the dresses with a detail you have been buying
You can find a dress with something on it for eighty-odd pounds on any high street. I know, because I have given a wardrobe of them to the charity shop. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
A frill or a bow across the chest, where you do not want eyes
A seam or a belt sitting on the middle
Short sleeves, or sleeves that cling
A zip at the back to reach for
Ironed, worn once, charity shop
Roses at the wrist, where you do
Straight from the shoulders, no waist at all
Long full sleeves that cover the arms
Over the head, nothing to fasten
Light, textured, no iron, over leggings and out
About the price
The Marietta is £42.95 at the moment. It was £86.00.
I am careful with money and I will not pretend otherwise, so I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that they are a small shop selling directly and they run a summer sale to shift the season’s stock before it turns. 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 middle sizes were already thin when I went back.
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, 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.
Folded on the kitchen table between outings. The roses do not mind being folded. I checked.
If you stopped buying anything with a detail on it because every detail was for somebody else, this is the one I would put in your hands myself, while your size is still there.
Pat
MARIETTA | Sculptural Shift Dress
- Straight from the shoulders, no waist, nothing on the middle
- Long full sleeves that cover the arms
- Three fabric roses at each cuff
- Beaded buttons down the front, decoration only, over the head
- Above the knee, made for leggings
- Seven colours, XS to 2XL
- FREE UK delivery & 100% happiness guarantee
Summer sale on now. The middle sizes go first.