A letter from a reader

At 62, putting on a cardigan had started to feel like giving up

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

Somewhere in the last few years the cardigan stopped being a thing I wore and started being a thing I settled for. I would be going out, I would look at the jacket, and I would reach past it for the cardigan because it was warm and soft and easy, and the whole way to wherever I was going I would have the quiet feeling that I had not made an effort. Not sad about it. Just aware of it.

A cardigan is the comfortable choice, and somewhere along the line I had decided that made it the lazy one.

So I kept buying more of them, in grey and navy and more grey, and kept feeling the same way about every one.

Then I saw it on a friend at book group

Pauline had on a soft grey cardigan, the most ordinary thing in the world, except that down the front were four little gold hearts instead of buttons. I noticed them from across the room before I noticed anything else she was wearing. She told me it was the Mavery, 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 book group

Three different women asked me about it before we had got anywhere near the book, and my friend Sue told me I looked like I had made an effort, which I have decided to take as a compliment. I was wearing a cardigan and jeans. That is all I was wearing.

That is the bit I keep thinking about. I did not have to dress up. I just had to stop wearing the plain one.

Three things I have learned since

One. Four small things can change the whole garment. The knit is a soft plain grey marl, nothing clever about it at all. The hearts are gold, about the size of a thumbnail, and they are the entire difference between this and every other cardigan I own.

Two. The V-neck earns its keep. It sits nicely on its own, it goes over a blouse without bunching at the throat, and there is room for a necklace if I am going somewhere.

Three. The deep ribbing matters more than I thought. There is a proper wide rib at the hem and at the cuffs, and it holds its shape instead of going slack and droopy at the bottom the way my old ones did by February.

About the price

I assumed a detail like that would be the expensive part.

The Mavery is £34.95. It was £70.

There is no catch. They have their autumn sale on, delivery is free, and it comes in six colours and up to a UK 22 to 24, which I mention because that is not always true of the pretty things.

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 worn it three times this week and somebody has mentioned the buttons every time." 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 are allowed to be comfortable. You were never the problem. The problem is that everything sold to us for being comfortable is also completely plain, and we have quietly accepted that those two things have to come together. They do not.

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