At 62, I have quietly stopped buying anything that goes over my head
At 62, I have quietly stopped buying anything that goes over my head
Six things the Pernella gets right that ordinary tops get wrong, from a woman who is not a fashion writer.
Caroline Richards · Customer · Nottinghamshire · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking, and let me start with something I have never said out loud. I am Caroline, I am 62, I live in Nottinghamshire, and I have quietly stopped buying anything that goes over my head. Not as a decision. I never sat down and made a rule. But I have been putting things back on the rail for years now, and it took me until this spring to work out why.
The blouse I am writing about is called the Pernella, from Nottingham Boutique, a small boutique that has been quietly making the ordinary things a bit lovelier for a few years now. Soft grey, with fine black lines and little trails of dots running through it, a proper pointed collar, and buttons all the way down. When the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition that I could be completely honest in it.
Buttons all the way down. That really is the whole of it. Read on.
How it happens
Nobody mentions this one, because said out loud it sounds like complaining about nothing at all. But somewhere in your fifties, pulling a top on over your head stops being free. Your shoulders are stiffer first thing than they were. If you have just had your hair done you are not undoing it for a jumper. You wear your glasses most of the day now, so they have to come off and go somewhere first. It is a small negotiation, and it happens every single time.
And because it is such a small thing, you never once say it in a shop. You hold the top up, you have a quick think about the whole performance, and you put it back. I must have done that a hundred times without ever finishing the thought.
What I had wrong
I had filed buttons under old-fashioned. Something my mother wore. A bit fussy, a bit of a faff, all those little holes. So the very thing that solves it was the thing I had stopped looking at, which I find quite annoying now I think about it.
A button front does not go over anything. It goes on like a cardigan. Arms in, do it up, and you are dressed. And at the end of the day it comes off without touching your hair, your glasses or your shoulders.
I had not been avoiding the clothes. I had been avoiding the thirty seconds of getting into them, and I had never admitted it to a single soul.
I ordered it half expecting to send it back. Having worn it most weeks since, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The day it came. Softer in the hand than it looks on a screen.
IT DOES NOT GO OVER YOUR HEAD
Buttons from the collar to the hem, about seven of them, small and flat and the same grey as the cloth. You open it, put your arms in and do it up, exactly as you would a cardigan. Nothing goes near your hair. Your glasses stay on your face. And on the mornings when my shoulders are complaining, which is more of them than I would like, it makes no difference at all to how long I stand there getting dressed.
The collar and the top of the button placket. All the way down, the whole length.
I did not know why I had stopped wearing half my wardrobe until I bought this. It was the over-the-head business all along.
Sheila K., CarltonTHE COLLAR DOES SOMETHING FOR YOUR FACE
It is a proper pointed shirt collar, and worn open with the top two undone it sits well and frames the face, which round necks at our age quite honestly do not. It also gives the whole thing a tidy, finished look at the top without any effort from me, and it is the reason this reads as a blouse rather than as a casual top. I have worn it to a lunch out and to the shops in the same week and it was right for both.
The collar is what makes it. It lifts my face in a way a round neck never has.
Vera P., SherwoodIT SKIMS RATHER THAN CLINGS
I will say the quiet part out loud, because I would have wanted somebody to say it to me. It is cut relaxed and easy, with the shoulder seam sitting a little wide, so it hangs from the shoulders and goes past the middle without following you about. I have spent years buying things a size up to get this effect and then wearing them looking like I had borrowed them. This is simply made that way, which is a great deal better.
Hung up for the morning. You can see how it falls.
Roomy in the right places without being a sack. I took my usual size and it was right.
Marianne T., BramcoteTUCKED IN OR LEFT OUT, BOTH LOOK RIGHT
It is hip length with a gently curved hem and little splits at the sides, so it works either way. Left out over trousers it covers what I would like covered. Tucked into the waistband with the sleeves pushed up it looks completely different and a good deal smarter, and that is the version that went to my sister's birthday lunch. Two outfits from one blouse, and no decision to make until you are actually standing there.
The same blouse, tucked in. It is barely the same garment.
Out for every day, tucked in for going somewhere. I have had more wear out of it than anything else this autumn.
Glenys R., MapperleyTHE SLEEVES ROLL BACK
Long sleeves with a turn-back cuff, so on a milder day or when I am doing something with my hands they fold back twice and stay put. It sounds like nothing. It is the difference between a blouse that comes off when you start the washing up and one that simply stays on all day, and a thing that stays on all day is a thing that earns its keep.
Rolled back twice, which is where mine live most of the time.
Sleeves down for the cold mornings, rolled up for the kitchen. They stay where you put them.
Enid M., CliftonTHE PATTERN IS QUIET, WHICH IS WHY IT GOES WITH EVERYTHING
It is a soft grey with fine black lines running through it and little trails of dots following them about, and there is plenty of plain grey in between. From across a room it reads as a texture rather than a pattern, which means it does not fight with anything and it does not date. It has been out with navy trousers, with black, with jeans and with my grey skirt, and it has never once looked like it was trying.
Interesting close up and quiet from a distance, which is exactly what I wanted and hardly ever find.
Audrey L., BilsthorpeThe Pernella, against the tops I had been putting back on the rail
I have a drawer of perfectly nice things I do not reach for. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Glasses off, hair squashed, shoulders complaining
A round neck that does nothing for your face
One way of wearing it, and that is that
Sleeves that will not stay where you push them
Quietly left in the drawer and never quite admitted
Buttons from top to bottom, on like a cardigan
A pointed collar that frames the face
Tucked in or left out, two different outfits
Turn-back cuffs that stay rolled
Worn most weeks since it arrived
About the price
The Pernella is £32.95. It was £66.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that the autumn sale is on and the middle sizes go first. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that half price is usually where I start asking what is wrong with a thing, and weeks of wearing it, I have not found it.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real women rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women's words.
Put out the night before, which I have started doing again now that getting dressed is not a negotiation.
What I would tell you if we were friends
If you and I were sat in my kitchen and you asked me, this is what I would say. Have a think about the last few things you picked up in a shop and put back down without buying. If more than one of them went over the head, then you have been doing the same quiet arithmetic I was doing, and you probably have not said it out loud either.
And do look through the rest of them before you settle, because there are twenty-odd in the collection and every one of them does up the front. Mine is the grey with the lines and dots. There are florals and stripes and plain ones and a gingham, so there will be one that is properly you.
It is only a row of buttons. But it turned out to be the difference between a wardrobe I use and a wardrobe I look at.
Go and have a look while your size is still there.
Caroline
PERNELLA | Casual Dotted Line Pattern Blouse
- Full button front, so nothing goes over your head
- Pointed shirt collar that frames the face
- Soft grey with fine lines and trails of dots
- Relaxed fit that skims rather than clings, hip length
- Long sleeves with turn-back cuffs
- Eight sizes, UK 8/10 (S) to UK 22/24 (5XL)
- Free UK delivery and 30 day returns
The autumn sale is on now, half price. The middle sizes go first.