At 62, six o'clock used to be when I gave up
At 62, six o'clock used to be when I gave up
Six things the Velma gets right that the old fleece and leggings 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. I am Caroline, I am 62, I live in Nottinghamshire, and until this year I had a routine I had never once said out loud to anybody. At about six o'clock, when the curtains were shut and the day was done, I went upstairs and changed into the warmest things I owned. An old navy fleece of Derek's, gone flat at the elbows. A pair of leggings worn thin at the knee. Warm, yes. But from six o'clock until bed I was somebody I would not have wanted anybody to see.
The thing I am writing about is called the Velma, from Nottingham Boutique, a small boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. A matching two piece in a soft cable-textured fleece, a round neck top and trousers that pull straight on, and mine is a soft lilac purple. 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.
My sister turned up unannounced three weeks ago and I did not go upstairs to change. Read on.
Here is the trap, and I suspect a good many of us are in it. The warm things and the nice things are kept in different drawers. The nice things are not warm enough to sit about in on a cold evening, and the warm things are not things you would answer the door in. So every single evening you make a small, quiet trade, and you tell yourself it does not matter because nobody is going to see you. And then somebody does.
I had always thought it was a choice between being comfortable and being fit to be seen. It was not. It is just that nobody had made a warm thing that looked like clothes.
The Velma is the first thing I have owned that gets that right, and having lived in mine most evenings since it came, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it came. Thicker in the hand than I expected, and hardly any weight to it.
IT IS WARM WITHOUT THE WEIGHT
This is the part I had not expected. Pick it up and it is thick, properly thick, the sort of thickness you feel in your hands. Put it on and it is barely there. The old fleece I used to change into sat on my shoulders all evening and I was glad to be out of it by ten. This one I forget about entirely, which is the highest praise I can give a warm thing, and I have stopped putting the heating on quite so early because of it.
Where it spends most of its life. Feet up, nobody expected.
It is thick to hold and you cannot feel it on. I have not reached for my old fleece once since it came.
Lynne P., ArnoldTHE CABLE IS IN THE FABRIC, NOT PRINTED ON IT
This is the bit that makes it look like something rather than like nothing. The cable is worked into the fleece itself, so those thick ropes stand up off the surface and catch the light, and it has the look of a heavy winter knit. I have had cheap things with a pattern printed flat on the front and you can tell in a second. You can run your hand across this and feel every one of them.
The cable, close up. It is in the fabric, not on it.
Looks like a proper chunky knit but weighs nothing. Everyone assumes it cost a great deal more than it did.
Hazel D., WorksopTHERE IS NOTHING TO FASTEN AND NOTHING DIGS IN
The trousers have an elasticated waist and that is the whole of it. No button, no zip, no drawstring to knot itself into a lump you then sit on. I will be honest, this matters more to me every year. After a meal, on a cold evening, in a chair with your feet up, the last thing you want is a waistband reminding you it is there. I put them on and then I do not think about them again.
Elastic all the way round, and nothing to do up.
The waist is soft and wide and does not roll down or dig in. That alone was worth it to me.
Carol S., RetfordIT SKIMS RATHER THAN CLINGS
I will say the quiet part out loud, because I would have wanted somebody to say it to me. Most warm, soft things go one of two ways on a woman my shape. Either they cling everywhere you would rather they did not, or they are so enormous you look like you are being swallowed. This is cut easy through the body without being a tent, and the legs are generous and long enough, which if you are tall you will know is not a given.
Roomy in the right places and long enough in the leg. I am 5ft 9 and the trousers are not halfway up my shins.
Angela K., Long EatonIT IS A MATCHING TWO PIECE, SO IT READS AS AN OUTFIT
This is the one that changed the evenings for me. What I used to put on was odds and ends. Somebody else's fleece and whatever was on the chair, and the moment you have got odds and ends on you look like a woman who has stopped bothering, whether you have or not. Top and trousers in the same fabric and the same colour is a completely different thing. It looks considered. And that is why I did not go upstairs when my sister arrived.
The two pieces. They match, and that turns out to be the whole trick.
Because it matches it looks like you meant it. My son in law did not blink and that is the highest praise going.
Maureen F., BinghamIT GOES STRAIGHT IN THE MACHINE
I always ask this now, because I have been caught out before by something soft and lovely that turned out to want hand washing, and a thing you have to hand wash is a thing you stop wearing. This goes in the machine like everything else. Which matters rather a lot for something you are going to put on most evenings of the week, and it is the reason I ended up ordering a second one so there is always one ready.
Washed mine several times now and it has come out of the machine just as soft as it went in.
Glenys T., OllertonThe Velma, against what I used to change into
For years my evenings started with an old fleece and a pair of leggings. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Warm, but you would not answer the door in it
Odds and ends that do not go together
A waistband that has either gone or digs in
Flat, bobbled and long past its best
Heavy on your shoulders by nine o'clock
Warm, and you do not mind who sees you
A matching top and trousers in one fabric
Soft elasticated waist, nothing to fasten
Cable texture worked into the fleece itself
Thick to the touch and light on
About the price
The Velma is £29.95 at the moment. It was £60.00, and that is for both pieces together, which I checked twice because I assumed it was for the top.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that the middle sizes go first and once the autumn stock has gone it can be a wait for it to come back. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that half price is usually the point at which I start asking what is wrong with a thing, and a few weeks of wearing it nearly every evening, 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.
Hung up ready for this evening, which is a sentence I never expected to write about something this comfortable.
If your evenings start the way mine used to, with going upstairs and changing into something you would rather nobody saw, I would start here. It is a small thing. But there is a difference between being comfortable and having given up, and for about fifteen years I had them muddled together as though they were the same. Go and have a look while your size is still there.
Caroline
VELMA | Cable Fleece Set
- Matching two piece, top and trousers together
- Cable texture worked into the fleece, not printed on
- Round neck, long sleeves, hip length top
- Elasticated waist, nothing to fasten
- Relaxed through the body, generous in the leg
- Machine washable, in six colours
- UK 8/10 (S) to UK 14/16 (XL) · free UK delivery and 30 day returns
The autumn sale is on now, half price for both pieces. The middle sizes go first.