I have bought winter coats for forty-five years and spent most of them sitting on one. This is the first thing I have written a letter about.
I have bought winter coats for forty-five years and spent most of them sitting on one. This is the first thing I have written a letter about.
Six things these two capes get right that forty-five years of coats never did, from a woman who spent last December’s pantomime with her own sleeves on the floor.
Maggie Whitfield · Customer · Cheshire · 5 min read
I had better say who is talking first. I am Maggie, I am 67, and I live in Cheshire with my husband Geoff and a labrador who thinks every walk is his idea. I have bought a winter coat every few years since I was old enough to pay for one, and I have never once thought any of them was worth writing to anybody about. Well. I have changed my mind, and it took a Christmas pantomime and a woman called Rosalind to change it.
The capes I am writing about are from the cape 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 checked shoulder capes with a shawl collar, one button and a tassel fringe. 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 last December. I took my grandchildren, Isla and Teddy, to the Christmas matinee at the old theatre in Crewe, as I do every year. It was bitter outside and roasting inside, and there is no room in a row of those seats to get your arms out of anything. By the time the lights went down I was sitting on my own coat, with the sleeves on the floor and Teddy standing on the belt. The woman in the row in front stood up, undid one button and laid the whole thing over the back of her seat. It was a cape in a dark check with bright red stripes, a red collar and a tassel fringe along the bottom. When the lights came up for the interval she had it back on before I had found my second sleeve. I found myself behind her in the ice cream queue, and I asked her, plainly, where it was from. Her name was Rosalind. She told me. Read on.
The one that started it. A red collar, one button and a fringe, in the aisle at the interval.
Here is what forty-five years of buying winter coats taught me. They come in two piles. The proper ones, heavy and warm, that you cannot get out of in a row of seats, a car or a café without a performance. And the pretty ones, that look lovely on the hanger and leave you cold across the shoulders by the time you reach the car park.
For forty-five years I have sat on my own coat. Rosalind undid one button.
Neither pile is any use to a woman who is in and out of the cold all day. This is the first thing I have owned that is. I have worn mine in and out of a good many warm rooms since, and it comes down to six things.
My first one, the Fiona, the morning it came. I had it on before I had read the post.
One button, and that is the lot
There is a single button at the front, where the collar comes together. No zip to catch, no row of buttons to get wrong in a hurry, nothing to line up. You slip it round your shoulders, do the one button and go. Undo the one button and it is off. I timed myself in the hall, which Geoff thought was very funny, and then he went quiet when I did it again with a bag in the other hand.
The whole of the fastening. I did not believe it until I had one in my hand.
My last coat had six buttons and I was always one out by the bottom. One button I can manage, even with my gloves on.
Margaret H., WistastonNo sleeves to fight with
This is the part that took me longest to understand and that I would now not give up. It sits over your shoulders and falls open at the sides, so your arms are your own. You can carry the shopping, hold a small hand and pay for three ice creams, and nothing rides up or drags. And when you sit down in a warm room it goes over the back of your seat, instead of underneath you.
Over the back of the seat, where I have now seen for myself that it belongs.
I take it to the theatre and the pictures now. It goes over the seat and I am not sitting on a lump for two hours.
Pauline D., ShavingtonA collar that puts colour by your face
The collar is a wide shawl collar that turns back to show a contrast colour on the other side. On the Fiona it is a bright red, and on my camel one, the Romilly, it is a soft olive green. It sits up round the neck and comes down into a V at the front, so the first thing anybody sees is that colour, and not the same navy they saw on you last winter. I have spent years in dark coats that made me look tired. This does the opposite.
The red at the neck lifts everything. My daughter asked if I had been away.
Jean R., HaslingtonIt goes over everything you already own
Over a jumper, over a dress, or over your coat on the really bitter days. That is what the boutique says and it is what I have done. It is soft and warm and it wraps round the shoulders, which is where I feel the cold first, and I will not tell you what it is made of, because the boutique does not say and I will not guess. What I can tell you is that I wear the camel over a cream jumper for the morning walk, and the labrador has not yet complained.
The camel one on the morning walk, at the gate we always stop at.
So cosy across the shoulders, and it looks smart over a plain dress. I have hardly had my big coat out.
Christine W., WillastonA check and a fringe with some life in them
I do not usually go in for anything bold. But these checks are the sort you see on a good rug at a country show, and the tassels along the bottom move when you walk, which I did not expect to like and do. The Fiona is a navy ground with bright red stripes and flashes of green and mustard at the shoulders. The Romilly is a warm camel with burgundy and aqua stripes. Neither of them looks like something you put on because it was the only thing left on the peg.
My husband asked where I had been hiding it. I have had three compliments in the butcher’s, which has never happened before.
Valerie T., WinterleyOne size, and nine designs
It is one size, 150 by 50 centimetres of it, and because it drapes rather than fits there is nothing to measure and no ringing up to send it back. There are nine designs in the collection, every one at the same price. As well as the Fiona and the Romilly there is a green tartan, a bold multicolour stripe, a red stripe, a red colourblock, a navy stripe, a pink tartan and a pink check. Rosalind has three. I have the Fiona and the Romilly, and I have put a third one away for my sister June for Christmas, because she is the only other woman I know who still sits on her coat.
The pair of them on the bed. Red for the days I want to be seen, camel for everything else.
Bought one for me and one for my sister. No worrying about sizes, and it suits us both, and we are nothing alike.
Susan B., WheelockThese capes, against what is hanging in your hall
You can carry on with a coat you end up sitting on, like I did for forty-five years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
A performance to get off in a row of seats
Sleeves that end up on the floor
A row of buttons or a zip that catches
Dark, and the same as last winter
Sizes to guess, and returns to post
Off in a moment, and over the back of the seat
No sleeves at all, so your arms are your own
One button, and that is the lot
A bold check with a contrast collar by your face
One size, 150 by 50 centimetres
About the price
Every cape in the collection is £25.95, down from £52.00. The same price whichever one you pick, and all one size.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these are in their sale while the winter stock goes, and once a design sells through, that one is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that I have paid five times that for coats I have spent the whole winter sitting on. So £25.95 for one I would happily hang over the back of somebody else’s chair 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 ever spent a whole pantomime sitting on your own coat, this is where I would start. Have a look before somebody else takes the one you like, because the winter stock will not wait for Christmas. And if it is a gift you have in mind, it makes a lovely one, which is exactly what June is getting. We have our seats booked again this December. This time Teddy will have to find something else to stand on.
Maggie
THE CAPE COLLECTION
- Nine checked and striped designs, every one the same price
- Fiona navy and red check, Romilly camel check
- Shawl collar in a contrast colour
- Single front button and a tassel fringe
- Soft, warm and cosy across the shoulders
- One size, 150 x 50 cm · Free UK delivery
Sale on now. The winter stock is already going.