A letter from a reader

At 68, I put on stripes for the first time in years, and our quiz team lost a point over it

On Monday evenings I do the quiz at our local with the same three women I have done it with for years. We are strong on history, hopeless on sport, and we take it all far too seriously, which is the whole point of a quiz.

Last Monday we lost a point in the geography round, and I am told it was my fault. Sheila was meant to be remembering a capital city. Instead she leaned across the table, mid-question, and said the thing I have been repeating all week.

Never mind Ulaanbaatar. Where on earth did you get that blouse?

Two more women asked before last orders, one from the winning table, which softened the defeat considerably. So here is the answer, written down once, with photographs.

How it happens

First, you should know what sort of woman is telling you this. I am not a pattern person. I retired from prints years ago, after one flowered blouse too many made me feel like the curtains, and I have dressed in navy and cream ever since and called it elegance.

And stripes were never the way back in. You have seen what a straight stripe does at our age. It runs up and down like a ruler, it breaks at every seam, and it reports on the figure underneath with a rudeness nobody asked for. A deckchair is the only body it flatters.

So between the wallpaper prints and the ruler stripes, I had settled on plain, permanently. I thought those were the only three doors.

What I had wrong

There is a fourth door. Nobody had shown it to me until this blouse walked through it.

The lines on it are bold and black, on a warm flax ground, two colours and nothing else. But they refuse to behave like stripes. They sweep across one side in wide arcs, double back on themselves in a hairpin low on the other, and change direction again at the sleeves, so no two parts of the blouse agree and somehow the whole thing does. The nearest thing I can compare it to is a fingerprint drawn large.

A straight line is a ruler. A curved one is a signature. It took a blouse to teach me the difference.

Mine is the Jonquille

It is from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women like us for a few years now.

It is called the Jonquille, and the colours are what got past my defences. Black and flax, that is the entire palette, which means it is technically as restrained as anything in my navy-and-cream wardrobe. The pattern does all the talking and the colours never raise their voice. That, I have decided, is the loophole.

The details are quietly right. A proper point collar that sits flat, small dark buttons down the front like full stops, sleeves that stop at the bracelet line so they never trail in the washing up, and a curved hem that rounds off nicely at the hip. The fabric is a matte weave with real texture to it, the kind that looks better slightly crumpled, which suits both my ironing schedule and my philosophy.

What happened at the quiz

I wore it the way the boutique suggests, open over a plain black top with dark trousers, and that is the entire secret. The black underneath makes the flax glow and the lines read like a drawing, and suddenly a woman who has worn navy to every quiz night for a decade is stopping the geography round.

Since then it has done a lunch with my daughter, a parish meeting, and another Monday quiz, where we won, so it is possibly also lucky.

Three things I have learned since

One. Curves beat straight lines. A straight stripe argues with a body. A curved one agrees with it, bending where you bend, and never once files a report on the figure underneath.

Two. Dark underneath does the work. Black or navy beneath, blouse open, done. It dresses up an outfit I already owned rather than demanding a new one.

Three. Two colours is the loophole. If a bold pattern keeps to black and one quiet warm neutral, it goes with everything a plain-dressing woman already owns. You get the drama without breaking a single one of your own rules.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me hesitate.

The Jonquille is £34.95 at the moment. It was £70.00.

I have paid more for plain navy blouses that said nothing at all. For the one piece in the wardrobe that gets asked about between quiz rounds, it is the hardest-working thing I own per compliment, and I say that as a Yorkshirewoman who audits such things.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. One woman had written, “I have not worn pattern since my forties and this is the one that broke me. Three compliments the first wear.” That was the one that decided it.

They do a whole collection of these bold autumn blouses, and I have already been back to look with my sensible head on, which is how I know my sensible head has gone.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat with a pot of tea and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you retired from patterns because they made you feel like the soft furnishings, it was never the pattern. It was the repeat and the ruler. Try the curved kind, two colours only, worn open over dark, and watch what gets looked at. It is you.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and the first autumn stock is already going, so the middle sizes disappear first. It comes in sizes 8/10 to 22/24.

A straight line is a ruler. A curved one is a signature. Wear the signature.

Patricia