A letter from a reader

At 62, I wore leopard print and did not feel ridiculous

I have never written to a shop before, and I did not expect my first letter to be about leopard print of all things.

Here is the truth of it. I have walked past leopard for twenty years. I would pick a thing up, hold it against myself in the mirror, and hear my mother's voice saying something about mutton dressed as lamb. Then I would put it back and buy the navy one. It was not that I did not like it. It was that every leopard thing in the shop was leopard from the shoulder to the knee, and that much of it on me felt like a costume.

I did not want to be daring. I wanted a bit of daring, in a dose I could actually leave the house in.

So I left it to other women, and bought another navy jumper.

Then I saw it on a friend at a birthday lunch

My friend Pauline came in wearing a soft knitted jumper with leopard across the shoulders, plain cream through the middle and a band of warm camel at the bottom. That is what made me look twice. The print stops. It sits up on the shoulders where it catches the eye, and the rest of it is a perfectly ordinary, lovely jumper. I asked her where it was from before we had even ordered. She told me it was the Beatrice, from Nottingham Boutique, a little boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I ordered mine that evening.

What happened at the next lunch

I wore it a fortnight later with my dark jeans. Three different women asked me where it was from, and my friend Sue told me I looked like I had made an effort, which I have decided to take as a compliment. Nobody said a word about mutton, which I had been half expecting to hear inside my own head all afternoon.

What surprised me was how quickly I forgot I had it on. I had braced myself to feel conspicuous, and instead I just felt dressed.

Three things I have learned since

One. Where the print stops is everything. Leopard on the shoulders and plain cream below it reads as a jumper with character. Leopard all the way down reads as a statement, and I did not want to make one.

Two. It goes with what you already own. Dark jeans, black trousers, a cream skirt if you are feeling brave. The camel band at the hem does most of the matching for you.

Three. It is a proper soft jumper. Relaxed through the body, dropped shoulders, ribbed cuffs and hem. Comfortable enough that it is the thing I reach for, not the thing I save.

About the price

When I saw the price I was suspicious. A knitted jumper with a pattern worked into it, I assumed, would either cost a small fortune or feel thin and scratchy.

The Beatrice is £34.95. It was £70.

There is no catch. They have their autumn sale on, delivery is free, and it arrived looking exactly as it did in the pictures.

I did go and read the reviews before I ordered a second one. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some sites, which if I am honest made me trust it more. One woman had written, "I have always wanted to wear leopard and never dared. This is leopard for the faint hearted and I love it." That was the one that decided it for me.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you came round and we sat out on the porch with a cup of tea, this is what I would tell you.

Whatever it is you have been walking past in the shops, the odds are you do not want the whole thing. You want a bit of it. Find the version that gives you a bit of it, and stop listening to that voice about mutton. It was never about you anyway.

It does not look like it was made for somebody half my age, and it does not look like I have given up either.

Caroline