A letter from a reader

At 67, I realised my top half had become a drawer of plain t-shirts

I have never written anything like this before, and I want to say at the start that I am not a writer and I am not in the habit of telling other women what to wear.

But four different women asked me about my top at coffee a fortnight ago, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

It started when I caught myself getting ready to go out and realised the choice, yet again, had come down to which plain t-shirt was cleanest.

When did my top half become a drawer of t-shirts?

Because that is what it had become. A pile of plain, soft, shapeless t-shirts, and two or three blouses so stiff and fussy they may as well have come with a brooch.

I did not choose that. Nobody decides that the top half of them no longer matters. It creeps up, one comfortable t-shirt at a time.

How it happens

We put so much thought into the bottom half. The right trousers, the comfortable ones, the ones that sit properly.

And then on top we give up, because the shops offer us either a young woman's slogan t-shirt or a blouse designed, apparently, for a much older and much fussier woman than any of us feel.

There is very little in between. So you wear the plain t-shirt, and you feel fine, and you feel invisible, and those two things turn out to be the same feeling.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong. I thought a nice blouse meant fuss. Buttons, an iron, a stiff collar, something that needed thinking about.

It does not. What lifts an ordinary pair of trousers is not fuss. It is a soft neckline that opens up your face instead of closing everything in at the throat, and a fabric light enough to drape rather than sit there like board.

Get those two right and a blouse is no more trouble than a t-shirt, and it changes the whole of you from the waist up. That took me until 67 to work out.

It is called the Laura

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

It is called the Laura. A soft V-neck blouse in a lovely pale sky-blue, light as anything, that drapes rather than clings. There are other colours, a white and a pink and a green, which I will come back to.

The V is soft and open without being low, so it flatters the neck rather than exposing it, and it lifts the colour up towards your face. The fabric is light enough for a warm room and it moves nicely instead of hanging.

And it takes an ordinary pair of navy trousers and makes them look like I planned the whole thing.

What happened at coffee

I wore it to coffee with the girls, with my navy trousers.

Four of them asked me where it was from. Four. One was Christine, who I have known for years and who has never once commented on anything I have worn.

She said I looked bright and well. I have decided to take that as a compliment.

What I noticed more than the compliments was that I had not thought about the top half all morning, which is different from not caring about it. I had simply got it right and forgotten it.

The next day I wore it again to the shops, and it was just as easy.

Three things I have learned since

One. The neckline does the work. A soft V lifts your face and lengthens your neck. A high round crew, which is what most of my t-shirts are, does the exact opposite, and I never knew why I looked tired in them.

Two. Light fabric is not the same as flimsy. This drapes and moves, which is what makes it look considered. Stiff blouses sit there and add years.

Three. It is the cheapest way to look pulled together. Same trousers, same shoes, better top, completely different woman in the mirror.

About the price

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

The Laura is £24.95. It was £50.00.

My first thought was that there had to be a catch, because a blouse this soft usually costs a good deal more in town.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and they run a summer sale to shift the season's stock.

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. Real people, mixed opinions, mostly very good.

Then I ordered the pink one as well.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat in the garden and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If your top half has quietly become a pile of plain t-shirts, it is not because you have stopped caring. It is because the shops stopped offering you anything in between a teenager's top and your mother's blouse.

This is the in-between, and it is the cheapest thing I know of that makes you look like you again from the waist up.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and the middle sizes go first. And once the summer stock has sold through, that is it until next year.

I have not left the house in a plain t-shirt since.

Maggie