A letter from a reader

At 62, my son told me I had been wearing the same fleece since he was at school

I have never written anything like this before, and I should say at the start that I am not a writer and I am not in the habit of telling other women what to put on in the morning.

But three different women have asked me about the same top in the last fortnight, and I have now explained it enough times at enough kitchen tables that it seemed easier to sit down and write it out properly.

It started with my son, who came for his tea and stood in the kitchen doorway looking at me for a second too long.

Mum, you have had that fleece since I was at school.

He was not being unkind. He was doing the sums out loud. That fleece is nine years old. It is bobbled all over, the collar gave up years ago, one cuff has gone at the edge, and there is a mark near the hem that has never come out. And I had worn it every single day of that week.

How it happens

Nobody buys a fleece intending it to become the thing they are known for. You buy it for the garden, or for walking the dog, because it is warm and it has a zip and it does not need thinking about.

And then it does not need thinking about. That is the whole trouble. You put it on to take the bins out, and you keep it on to do the washing, and then you nip to the shop in it because you are only nipping, and after a while you are not nipping anywhere without it.

The shops do not help. Look for something for a woman our age and you are shown two things. Either a fleece or a fluffy zip-up that belongs indoors, or a proper blouse that wants ironing and an occasion. There is nothing offered in the middle, which is where almost all of life actually happens.

So you end up with a wardrobe full of things for occasions, and one tired old thing you actually wear.

What I had wrong

Here is what I had believed for years without ever examining it.

I thought comfortable and presentable were two different garments, and that you simply chose which one the day was going to be. If I wanted to be warm and easy I would look like I had given up. If I wanted to look like I had made an effort I would be pulling at a waistband all afternoon.

It turns out that is just not true, and the thing that showed me was a top with a zip on it. It is as soft and easy as the fleece was. It is also, and I did not expect this, quite smart. Not smart like a blouse. Smart like somebody chose it.

Comfortable and presentable were not a choice of one. I had simply never been offered the version that was both. That took me until 62 to find out.

Mine is the sky blue

It is from Nottingham Boutique, a small boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now, and they have their autumn sale on at the moment.

It is called the Winona. Mine is the soft sky blue, which I chose because it is kind near the face on a grey morning. They do it in six colours, though, including a navy, a black and a very good soft yellow, so there is a version of it for whatever you tend to wear.

Two things make it, and neither of them shows up properly in a photograph.

The first is the zip. It is a short one, from the middle of the chest up to a soft collar, so you can have it open and easy or drawn up to your neck when it turns. That sounds like nothing until you have used it for a week.

The second is the fabric. It is not flat. There is a fine quilted grid pressed all over it, little raised squares you can feel under your fingers, and it catches the light just enough that the whole thing reads as something considered rather than something plain. It is soft, matte, with no shine to it, and it has a comfortable weight without any bulk.

The same kitchen, most of a year apart

My daughter took the first of these back in the winter, without asking, while I was making the tea. The second one she took a few weeks ago in the same spot, because this time I asked her to.

Same woman, same kitchen, same kettle behind me. The garden has gone from bare to gold through the window, which tells you how long I put this off. I have not lost any weight, I have not had my hair done differently, and there is no more makeup on my face in one than the other.

The difference is that in the first one I look like somebody who was not expecting to be seen. In the second one I look like somebody who would not mind.

Three women have asked me about it since. My friend Sue asked at the garden centre, and then my neighbour asked over the fence, and then a woman I barely know stopped me by the tills in the Co-op. Nobody has ever stopped me to ask about a fleece.

Three things I have learned since

One. The zip is not a detail. This is the time of year when it is cold enough for a coat outside and far too warm inside every shop you walk into. I open it going round the supermarket and draw it up walking back to the car, and I have stopped doing that thing where you carry your coat over your arm and get cross about it.

Two. The texture is what stops it looking like a sweatshirt. That is the whole difference between this and every other easy thing I have owned. Those little raised squares catch the light, so it looks like a choice rather than the nearest thing to hand.

Three. I have stopped getting changed to go out. Not because I have stopped caring. Because I am already in something I am happy to be seen in, which I now realise is what I had wanted all along.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me pause.

The Winona is £32.95. It was £66.00.

I sat and worked out what the fleece had cost me, and it was more than that, back when I bought it. Nine years of wearing something I was faintly embarrassed by, and it had not even been the cheaper option.

There is no catch that I have been able to find. They are a small boutique selling directly, without a shop on a high street to pay for, which is where the difference goes.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went 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 websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. Real women, mixed opinions, mostly very good.

Then I ordered the navy as well, so that there is always one in the wash and one on.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat in my kitchen with a pot of tea and you asked me, this is what I would say.

Do not think about what is in your wardrobe. Think about what you actually reached for this morning, and the morning before that. If it is the same tired zip-up thing every time, then nothing is wrong with you. You have just never been offered something equally easy that you would also be happy to be seen in.

Two practical things. The autumn sale is on now, and it is the middle sizes that go first, which I found out when I went back for the navy. And it is worth having a proper look at all six colours, because a soft one near your face does more for you on a grey morning than you would think.

The fleece is still on its hook. I have not worn it since March, and I have not once been cold or uncomfortable without it.

Caroline