A letter from a reader

At 62, I put my dresses away every October and lived in trousers until May

I have never written to a shop before, and I did not expect my first letter to be about a dress in October.

Every year it is the same. The first cold morning comes, and the dresses go to the back of the wardrobe with the sandals. They are all thin summer things, and a thin dress in November just means cold legs and a cardigan you never take off. So from October to May I wore trousers. Trousers to the shops, trousers to Sunday lunch, trousers to the Christmas do. Warm enough. But I felt like I had put half of myself away in the wardrobe with the frocks.

I am a dress person. I just had not been one for six months of the year.

So I told myself that was simply what winter was, and got the trousers out again.

Then I saw it on a friend at the farm shop

Gill was in the queue at the farm shop café on a properly cold morning in a mustard knitted dress, brown boots up to the knee, and she looked as cosy as if she had come out in her favourite jumper. That is because, near enough, she had. It is a jumper that carries on down to the knee. She told me it was the Cisa, 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 our anniversary lunch

I wore it to the pub for our anniversary lunch on the first really grey Sunday of the month, with my brown boots and thick tights. Three different women asked me about it on the way to the table, and my friend Sue, who was there with her husband, told me I looked like I had made an effort, which I have decided to take as a compliment. I was in a dress in October, and I was warm. I had honestly forgotten you could have both.

It is a small thing, wearing a dress again. It did not feel like a small thing.

Three things I have learned since

One. It is the knit that does it. It is a proper jumper-weight rib, soft and cosy, not one of those thin jersey dresses that shows everything and keeps out nothing. With tights and boots it is as easy as wearing a jumper and jeans, only it looks like you meant it.

Two. It skims instead of clinging. It is a relaxed shape that hangs straight down from the shoulders to the knee, so it does not cling to my middle. There are pockets in the side seams, which in a dress is a small miracle.

Three. The collar makes it look finished. A soft fold-over collar with a short button placket, so you can wear it open with a necklace or buttoned up when the wind gets going. It is the difference between something for round the house and something you go out in.

About the price

I had assumed a knitted dress that felt this nice would be well over what I like to spend.

The Cisa is £39.95. It was £80.

There is no catch. They have their autumn sale on and delivery is free. It comes in yellow, red, beige and black, from a UK 8/10 up to a UK 18/20, and the measurements for every size are on the product page so you can check before you order.

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, "I have worn a dress every day this week and I have not been cold once." 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 are a dress person who packs her dresses away every autumn, it is not the season that is wrong. It is the dresses. You have been trying to wear summer in winter. Get one that is made like a jumper and you can stay yourself all year round.

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