I have bought dresses for forty years and saved every one of them for occasions. This is a letter about the one I work in
I have bought dresses for forty years and saved every one of them for occasions. This is a letter about the one I work in
Six things the Sara gets right that dresses get wrong, from a woman whose dresses used to wait in the wardrobe for weddings.
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 save every one of them for occasions, because a dress, in my experience, could not survive a working day. So this is not a review. It is a woman whose dresses used to wait in the wardrobe like good china, saying one of them has finally come out on a Tuesday, and saying why.
The dress I am writing about is called the Sara, 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 at the WI meeting who had done a full day before she reached the hall, 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 dresses taught me. They come in two piles. The occasion pile, lovely, and creased by the time you have got out of the car, clinging by the time the room warms up, and definitely not for a day with jobs in it. And the pile you can actually do things in, which is to say trousers, because no dress qualified. Somewhere along the way the dresses became good china. Owned, admired, and never out.
Dresses for occasions, trousers for the actual day. The dresses waited in the wardrobe like good china, and the occasions were rare.
The Sara is the first dress I have owned that refuses both piles, and having worn it through a cake stall, an allotment inspection and one treasurer’s report of my own, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it arrived. A proper soft green with little daisies worked through it. I hung it up for the next occasion, out of habit. It lasted two days in there.
It skims, so you can work in it
The cut is relaxed and it follows you rather than gripping you, so bending for a trug, reaching a shelf, or two hours behind a cake stall are all fine. Nothing rides, nothing needs tugging down, nothing announces the middle. That alone disqualifies most of my wardrobe.
Skims everything and stays put. I did a whole church fete in it and never once pulled at it.
Carol R., WakefieldIt does not crease
Out of the car, off the chair, out of the washing basket. The fabric simply does not hold a crease, which means the day leaves no evidence on it. The woman at the WI had driven to the hospital and back in hers and stood up looking pressed. I checked mine after the cake stall. Nothing.
The little daisies, close up. Something to look at without it shouting. And not a crease in sight.
Sat in the car an hour each way and got out looking ironed. I do not understand it and I have stopped asking.
Diane M., HarrogateIt is light, and it breathes
A warm village hall in August is a test most dresses fail. This one is light enough that I forget it, and air gets through it, so the treasurer’s report was delivered without incident. It is the difference between wearing a dress and managing one.
Cool in a packed hall and light as anything. First dress I have worn all day in summer without regretting it.
Patricia L., HuddersfieldThe length takes your legs out of the conversation
Mid-calf, every time, in every size. No checking, no careful bending, no wondering. It is a small thing and it changes the whole day, because the dress stops being something to monitor.
The neckline, plain and right. Nothing to adjust, nothing to fuss with.
The length is exactly right. I stopped thinking about my legs at eleven in the morning and did not start again.
Linda K., BradfordIt looks like an occasion without being one
A proper green, with the little daisies worked through the fabric, so it reads as a dress somebody thought about. Sandals and earrings and it does a christening. As it is, with the basket, it does the market. The same dress passed both tests in one week, which none of the good china ever managed.
Wore it to a christening on Saturday and the market on Monday. Right in both places. That never happens.
Janet S., YorkTwo colours, and the same cut from a UK 8 to a 24
The green I own and a soft blue, and they cut it the same the whole way up, not a different shape once you pass a certain number, which I wish more places would bother with. I went back for the blue. The woman from the WI owns both, and gave last month’s report in the other one.
The two of them on the bed. Same dress, same daisies, two different Thursdays.
Bought the green, went back for the blue. I am a 22 and it is the same easy shape as my sister’s 12.
Maureen T., SheffieldThe Sara, against the dresses you have been buying
You can find a summer midi for seventy pounds on any high street. I know, because my wardrobe was a shelf of them, each saved for an occasion and creased by the second hour of it. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
For occasions only, and rare ones
Creased by the time you are out of the car
Clinging the moment the room warms up
A length you monitor all day
A different cut once you pass a size 16
Out on a Tuesday, working
No crease, no evidence, no iron
Skims, breathes, forgets itself
Mid-calf, question closed
The same cut, UK 8 to 24
About the price
The Sara is £34.95 at the moment. It was £70.00.
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 blue, 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.
Over the armchair between outings. The good china stays in the wardrobe. This one works for a living.
If your dresses only come out for occasions, this is the one I would put in your hands myself, while your size is still there.
Pat
SARA | Patterned Midi Dress
- Skims rather than clings, made for a day with jobs in it
- Does not crease, no iron, no evidence
- Light and breathable for warm halls and warm days
- Mid-calf in every size, UK 8 to 24, same cut throughout
- Soft green or soft blue with tonal daisy texture
- FREE UK delivery & 100% happiness guarantee
Summer sale on now. The middle sizes go first.