A letter from a reader

At 62, everything in my wardrobe was the colour of porridge

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 took everything off the shelf one afternoon to sort it out, and I ended up sitting on the end of the bed looking at six cardigans, all of them the same. Oatmeal. Biscuit. Mushroom. A grey one I had thought of as the daring one. I had not chosen that. It had happened to me, a shop at a time, because that is what they put in front of women our age and I kept saying yes.

Comfortable had quietly turned into invisible, and I had not noticed it happening.

So I put them all back on the shelf, because they were perfectly good cardigans, and went out in the oatmeal one again.

Then I saw it on a friend at a birthday lunch

My friend Pauline came in wearing a cardigan covered in little coloured squares and stitches, like a quilt somebody had made by hand, with a hood and wooden buttons. It was soft and easy, exactly the sort of thing you would put on to potter about in, and yet everybody looked at it. I asked her where it was from before we had even ordered. She told me it was the Maisie, 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 next lunch

I wore it a fortnight later over a plain white top with my jeans. 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. One of them turned the cuff over to look at the pattern properly, which I do not think has ever happened to me before.

The odd thing is that it is no less comfortable than the oatmeal one. It is soft, it goes on over anything, and I still do the washing up in it. It simply looks like somebody chose it.

Three things I have learned since

One. A print is not the same as a bright colour. I was never going to buy a red cardigan. This is not loud, it is detailed, and the interest is in the pattern rather than in shouting.

Two. It is still an easy cardigan. Relaxed, hip length with a curved hem, five wooden buttons, and a hood to sit back on your shoulders. Wear it buttoned up or hanging open over a plain top.

Three. Plain things underneath are all it needs. A white top and jeans, or white trousers in the summer. The cardigan is the outfit and everything else can stay dull.

About the price

When I saw the price I was suspicious. Something with this much pattern on it, I assumed, would either cost a small fortune or come out of the bag looking cheap and shiny.

The Maisie 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, "Three people asked me about it on the first day. Nobody has ever asked me about a cardigan." 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 count your cardigans. If they are all the same colour, that was not a decision, it was a habit. Buy one thing that somebody would comment on, and keep the oatmeal one for the bins.

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