A letter from a reader

At 62, every jacket I owned stopped at exactly the wrong place

I have never written to a shop before, and I did not expect my first letter to be about the length of a coat.

Here is the thing nobody tells you. Every jacket in the shops finishes in the same place, right across the widest part of you. I had a rack of them in the hall. A quilted one, a padded one, a smart one for church. Every single one stopped at my hips, so I spent the whole of last winter tugging the back of it down, and the whole of every bus stop with a cold wind round the backs of my legs. Sitting on a park bench meant sitting on a cold bench.

I did not want a smaller me. I just wanted a coat that kept going.

So I put up with it, the way you do, and told myself that long coats were for tall women.

Then I saw it on a friend at the garden centre

Jean is no taller than I am, and she came across the car park at the garden centre in a long red coat with the hood down and her hands in the pockets, looking for all the world like she had somewhere nice to be. It came down past her knee and it did not swamp her, because it swings out a little towards the hem instead of clinging. She told me it was the Beatrine, 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 coffee morning

I wore it to the coffee morning at the village hall, and three different women asked me where it was from before I had got my cup of tea. My friend Sue told me I looked like I had made an effort, which I have decided to take as a compliment. I walked home the long way, past the allotments, with the wind behind me, and for once I did not notice it.

It is a strange thing to feel tall at 62. It is the length that does it.

Three things I have learned since

One. Length is not the same as bulk. I had always thought a long coat would make me look shorter and wider. This one falls past the knee and swings out a little at the hem, so the line goes straight down instead of stopping at my middle. It is the first coat in years I have looked at in a shop window and not winced.

Two. The buttons are big enough to actually do up. Big buttons all the way down the front, the kind you can manage with cold fingers, so I wear it done up on a blowy morning and open over jeans when it turns mild.

Three. The little things are the ones you use. There is a hood with a drawstring for when the weather turns, two pockets at the hip for my hands and my keys, and the cuffs are gathered so the sleeves stay out of the washing up and do not hang over my hands.

About the price

I had assumed a coat this long would be proper coat money.

The Beatrine is £34.95. It was £70.

There is no catch. They have their autumn sale on, delivery is free, and they do it from a UK 8/10 right up to a UK 22/24, in eight colours. There is room enough in it for a jumper underneath, so I bought my usual size.

I did go 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 sites, which if I am honest made me trust it more. One woman had written, "First coat I have owned that covers my bottom and still looks smart." 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.

If you have spent years tugging the back of your jacket down, it is not your shape that is wrong. It is the jacket. Somebody decided they should all stop at the hip, and you have been paying for it at every bus stop since.

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