A letter from a reader

At 62, I stopped saving my nice things for best

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

Here is the truth of it. I have a shelf in my wardrobe of things that are too nice to wear. A blouse from my daughter. A scarf I was given three birthdays ago, still in its tissue. They are all waiting for an occasion, and somehow the occasion never comes. Meanwhile I went to the shops, the doctor and my friend's kitchen table in the same tired grey cardigan with the stretched cuffs, and I told myself it did not matter because nobody was looking.

I was keeping my best things for a day that never arrived, and wearing my worst ones through the whole of my actual life.

So I gave up on looking nice on an ordinary day, and the good things stayed on the shelf.

Then I saw it on a friend at the garden centre

My friend Pauline came for a coffee wearing the cheeriest cardigan I had seen in years. Black spots on cream, a band of proper mustard yellow across the bottom, and little wooden buttons. It was a wet Tuesday and there was nothing special about the day at all. I asked her where it was from before we had even ordered. She told me it was the Darcy, 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 garden centre café

I wore it the following Saturday, over a plain white T-shirt with my jeans, to do nothing more exciting than have a coffee and buy some bulbs. 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.

What struck me on the way home was that it had been an ordinary day. No party, no lunch out, nothing in the diary. I had simply worn something lovely on a Saturday, and it had made the whole day feel a little brighter.

Three things I have learned since

One. Best is a habit, not a date. Nothing in my wardrobe is being saved any more. The cardigan goes on with jeans for the shops, and it has not come to any harm.

Two. The colour does the work. The spots and the band of yellow mean I do not have to think about the rest. A plain top, my usual jeans, and I look finished.

Three. It is genuinely comfortable. It is soft against the skin and warm without being heavy, and the wooden buttons are big enough to do up without a fight.

About the price

When I saw the price I was suspicious. Something this soft with these lovely buttons, I assumed, would either cost a small fortune or look cheap the moment it came out of the bag.

The Darcy 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 bought it for a lunch out and I have worn it every day since. It is the first nice thing I have not put back in the wardrobe." 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.

Go and look at the shelf where you keep the things that are too nice to wear. Take one down and put it on today, for no reason at all. This is an ordinary Tuesday, and it is also your life.

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