A letter from a reader

At 62, I had quietly decided that colour was not for me anymore

I almost did not write this, because it is a small thing to feel strongly about. But I have not felt quite myself in a dress for the better part of ten years, and this one handed that back to me on a Saturday afternoon, so here I am.

Somewhere in my fifties I quietly packed the colour away. The bright things, the patterned things, anything that might catch the eye. I told myself they only drew attention to the parts of me I would rather not advertise — the softer middle, the tops of my arms — and that plain black and navy were safer. Sensible. Slimming, supposedly.

I thought the only choice was colour that shouts, or black that hides. So I chose to disappear.

And so for years my wardrobe was a row of the same dark, careful things, and I rather stopped looking in the mirror on my way out of the door.

Then I saw it on Margaret at a summer lunch

It was on my friend Margaret, of all people, at a lunch in June. A flowing purple dress with the loveliest embroidered panel down the front, and she looked so easy in it, so herself, that I asked her outright where it was from. 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 their summer sale on. It is called the Margery. I ordered mine that same evening, before I could talk myself out of it.

What happened at the garden lunch

I wore it to a garden lunch that same weekend, and three different women came over to ask me about it. Three. I have not had that happen in years. My friend Sue told me I looked like I had made a real effort, which coming from Sue I have decided to take as the highest compliment. The funny thing is I had done nothing at all — no fuss, no jewellery, I just put the dress on.

That is the part I keep coming back to. It did all the work for me. The shape skims straight over the middle rather than clinging to it, the embroidered front gives you something to look at so you do not need a single other thing, and it is so light and cool that I forgot I had it on. I felt like myself, only a bit brighter.

Three things I have learned since

One. Colour does not have to shout. I had it in my head that pattern meant loud. This is a soft, deep purple with the print kept to a panel down the front — it reads as put-together, not fancy dress. It is the difference between being noticed and being on show, and I had forgotten there was one.

Two. A flowing shape is kinder than a tight one. For years I thought skimming meant hiding under something shapeless. This drapes and moves, so it grazes over the bits I am conscious of instead of gripping them, and somehow that looks more elegant, not less.

Three. Easy is its own kind of smart. It is light enough for a warm day, long enough to feel covered, and it needs nothing adding to it. I can be out of the door in the time it takes to slip it on, and I still feel like I have thought about it.

About the price

I will be honest, when Margaret told me what she paid I was a little suspicious. Things that look like this usually cost a great deal more, and I have been caught out before by something that looked lovely in a photograph and arrived feeling like a bin bag.

The Margery is £34.95. It was £70.00.

There was no catch that I could find. It arrived well made, the colour was exactly as pictured, and the embroidery is properly done rather than printed on flat. It simply happens to be in the summer sale.

I did go and read the reviews before I ordered a second one to be sure. 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, "The first thing in years that made me feel put together without any effort, and it hides everything I wanted hidden." That was the one that decided it for me.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you were sitting across from me with a cup of tea, I would not give you a lecture about fashion. I am not a fashion person and I never have been.

I would just say this: if you have quietly given up on colour because you decided it draws the eye to the wrong places, you might have the whole thing backwards, the way I did. The right dress does not point at you. It just lets you feel like yourself again. This was the one that did it for me.

It does not point at you. It just lets you look like you, on a good day.

Caroline