A letter from a reader

At 62, I looked like every other woman at the coffee morning

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

I help out at the church hall coffee morning every Thursday. A few weeks ago I was standing at the urn and I looked along the row of us pouring tea, and every single one of us was in the same cardigan. Beige, oatmeal, grey, the odd navy. Same shape, same shop, near enough the same woman. I had a little laugh about it at the time. Then I went home and opened my wardrobe, and it was not funny any more.

Twelve of us round the tea urn, and from the back you could not have told us apart.

I had not chosen to disappear. It had just happened, one sensible cardigan at a time.

Then I saw one on a lady in the library queue

She was in front of me waiting to return her books, in a zip-up cardigan covered in little flowers: red, pink, coral and lilac, all packed together on deep navy. It was cheerful without being loud, and it looked like it had been made just for her. I asked where it was from, which I never do. She told me it was from Nottingham Boutique, a little boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now, and that they had a whole collection of them, each with a different print. I ordered mine that evening. Mine is the Evadne.

What happened at coffee morning

I wore it the very next Thursday, zipped half up over a white top. Three different women asked me about it before the first pot was empty, and my friend Sue told me I looked like I had made an effort, which I have decided to take as a compliment. Joan from the flower rota asked if I had been somewhere nice. I had only been to the library.

It is a small thing, a cardigan with a bit of character. I had forgotten how nice it is to feel like yourself.

Three things I have learned since

One. A print does the work for you. The flowers go all the way round, front, back and sleeves, so it looks finished whether you wear it zipped up or open. Over a plain white top with jeans or trousers, and you are ready.

Two. A zip is kinder than buttons. It zips neatly from the hem right up to the collar, so there is nothing to gape across the front.

Three. The little collar is lovely in the cold. Zip it to the top and the stand collar keeps the chill off your neck. The ribbed cuffs and hem hold their shape too.

About the price

I had assumed something this unusual would cost a fortune in a boutique.

The Evadne is £39.95. It was £80.

There is no catch. They have their autumn sale on and delivery is free. Mine is the navy floral, and there are fourteen different prints in the collection, from little florals to checks and paisley, all the same price, from a UK 8 up to a UK 24.

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 was tired of blending in. I have had more compliments in this than in everything else I own put together." 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 started to feel invisible in a room full of beige, you do not need a whole new wardrobe. One cardigan that is unmistakably yours will do 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