I stopped buying anything with a pattern on it ten years ago. This is a letter about the blouse that changed my mind
I stopped buying anything with a pattern on it ten years ago. This is a letter about the blouse that changed my mind
Six things the Rosaline gets right that printed blouses get wrong, from a woman who had gone plain, then plainer, then t-shirts.
Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read
I am 68, I keep an allotment, and I have never sold a blouse in my life. What I have done is buy them, for forty years, and somewhere around ten years ago I stopped buying anything with a pattern on it, because every print I tried was wrong in one of two ways. So this is not a review. It is a woman who had gone plain, then plainer, then t-shirts, saying she has come back, and saying why.
The blouse I am writing about is called the Rosaline, 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 selling jigsaws behind the next stall at a car boot sale, 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.
Here is what forty years of blouses taught me about prints. They come in two piles. The pile printed for a woman half my age, bright and busy and cut to match. And the pile printed for a sofa, big dull flowers on a dull ground, in a shape that gives up at the shoulders. Both piles came with a collar at my throat or a front that gaped, and both piles went to the charity shop. So I went plain. Then plainer. Then, if I am honest, t-shirts, and I told myself that was taste.
A print for a woman half my age, or a print for a three-piece suite. For ten years I chose neither, and called it taste.
The Rosaline is the first printed blouse I have owned that refuses both piles, and having stood on a wet field in it from seven until one, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it arrived. Teal, roses up one side, a border along the hem, three little buttons. I thought, that is a lot of pattern for me. It is not.
A round neck with three buttons, and nothing at your throat
No collar. A plain round neck, bound narrow, and three small buttons at the top that you can leave done up or undo one. Nothing sits at your throat, nothing gapes when you bend for a box of jigsaws, and nothing needs adjusting in a car window.
The neck and the three buttons. That is all the fastening there is, and it is enough.
No collar at my neck and nothing gaping at the front. Three buttons and done. I wear it with the top one open.
Carol R., WakefieldThe print is a proper print
Roses climbing up one side, a narrow stripe panel beside them, a border along the hem, all on a soft washed teal that looks like an old tapestry. It is a print with some thought in it, the kind that looks like it cost money, and it is not for a woman half my age and it is not for a sofa. Three women at the car boot asked where it was from. One of them was buying a sofa.
Finally a print that is pretty without being girly or old. The roses and the stripe look far more expensive than they were.
Diane M., HarrogateThe sleeves come to the elbow with a turned-back cuff
Loose to the elbow, then a plain cuff turned back once. The tops of my arms are covered, which at 68 is policy, and the cuff makes it look finished rather than chopped off. No tab, no button, nothing to undo.
The elbow sleeves with the little cuff are the thing. Arms covered and it looks like a blouse somebody designed.
Patricia L., HuddersfieldIt is loose, and the hem dips at the sides
Straight through the body, no waist, no darts, and a hem that curves a little longer at the sides, so it covers the hips and stays put when you bend to a trestle table. Over navy trousers, over jeans, over leggings for the allotment. It does not ride up and it does not cling.
The hem, with the border and the roses coming up from it. Longer at the sides, which is where you want it.
Covers my hips, does not cling, and stays down when I bend. Wore it gardening and then to lunch without changing.
Linda K., BradfordIt is light, soft, and the iron has not been near it
The fabric is soft and light with a bit of crinkle to it, so it is cool on a warm morning and it looks the same at one o’clock as it did at seven. Out of the wash, on the hanger, worn. I have had it three weeks and the iron has not been out of the cupboard.
Light enough for July and it does not crease. Washed it twice, never ironed it, nobody can tell.
Janet S., YorkEleven prints, and a UK 8 to a 20
The teal roses I own, a white with wildflowers climbing up from the hem, a pale grey with tiny flowers, a purple one, a few patchworks and dots for the braver, and a beige with a sketch on it, all the same easy shape, from a UK 8 to a 20. I went back for the white wildflowers. The woman from the car boot owns four, and says she is stopping there. I do not believe her.
Three of the eleven on the bed. Same blouse, same three buttons, three different Sundays.
Bought the teal, went back for the white flowers and the grey. Same fit in all three, and I have never owned three of anything.
Maureen T., SheffieldThe Rosaline, against the printed blouses you have been buying
You can find a printed blouse for forty-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 print for a woman half your age, or for a sofa
A collar at your throat, or a front that gapes
Sleeves that stop at the shoulder or drag in the sink
Shaped at a waist that is not yours, hem riding up
Ironed, worn, crumpled by the school run
A proper print, roses and a stripe and a border
A round neck with three buttons, nothing at the throat
Elbow sleeves with a turned-back cuff
Loose and straight, hem longer at the sides
Light, soft, and it does not need the iron
About the price
The Rosaline is £22.95 at the moment. It was £46.00.
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 white, 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. It has not been near the ironing board.
If you stopped buying patterns because every print was too young or too much like a sofa, this is the one I would put in your hands myself, while your size is still there.
Pat
ROSALINE | Retro-Inspired Blouse
- Round neck with three buttons, nothing at the throat
- A proper retro print, roses, stripe and border
- Elbow sleeves with a turned-back cuff
- Loose and straight, hem longer at the sides
- Light, soft, no iron
- Eleven prints and colours, UK 8 to 20
- FREE UK delivery & 100% happiness guarantee
Summer sale on now. The middle sizes go first.