A letter from a reader

At 62, I stopped wearing dresses to things and had nothing else smart enough

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

Here is the thing nobody warns you about. At some point you quietly stop wearing dresses. Not in a dramatic way. You just find yourself putting one back on the hanger, because of the tights, or the bare arms, or the knees, or because the church hall will be freezing and you will spend the whole afternoon with your cardigan pulled down over your lap. And then an invitation lands and you open the wardrobe and there is nothing in there that is smart and also not a dress.

I was not short of clothes. I was short of an outfit.

So I did what I had done for about four years. Black trousers, the good top, the cardigan I wear to everything, and the vague feeling all afternoon that I had not quite bothered.

Then I saw it on a friend at a christening

Pauline turned up at her grandson's christening in taupe from head to foot — wide trousers, a plain top, and a long cardigan over the lot of it with great bold black shapes on it. She did not look like she was wearing a cardigan over an outfit. She looked like she was wearing an outfit. She told me it was the Daisey, 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 christening lunch

Three different women asked me where it was from before the pudding came out, and my friend Sue told me I looked like I had made an effort, which I have decided to take as a compliment. One of them said she had been looking for something that was not a dress since her own daughter's wedding, which is exactly how I would have put it.

I sat down at a long table for three hours in it and never once pulled anything down or folded my arms over myself. That is the whole of it, really.

Three things I have learned since

One. The deciding is the hard part, and this does it for you. The three pieces are made to go together, in the same taupe, so there is no holding one thing up against another at half past eight in the morning. You put on all three and you are dressed.

Two. The cardigan is doing the dressing up. It is long, down to the thigh, and it hangs open with nothing to fasten. The black shapes on it are big and bold, so it reads as a proper statement piece rather than a cardigan you have thrown on. The top and the trousers underneath are completely plain, which is why it works.

Three. It comes apart. The trousers go with everything I own. The plain top has been worn with jeans twice already. I bought it as an outfit and it turned out to be three things.

About the price

When I saw the price I did the sum twice, because I assumed it was for one piece and the others were extra.

The Daisey Set is £49.95. It was £100.

It is three garments. That is under seventeen pounds each, for a cardigan, a top and a pair of trousers that arrived together and match. There is no catch. They have their autumn sale on and delivery is free.

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 three weddings next year and I have stopped worrying about all of them." 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.

You have not got worse at dressing. You have simply stopped suiting the one thing you are supposed to wear to occasions, and nobody ever offered you an alternative. There is one. It has trousers in it.

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