A letter from a reader

At 63, I had worn the same plain tee in six colors for a decade

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

But three different women asked me about a blouse at coffee hour, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

The moment of truth came in May, when my daughter was helping me fold laundry. She held up a stack of my tops, all the exact same tee, in stone, sand, navy, sage, white and grey, and started laughing.

Mom, she said. You dress like a paint sample.

She was not wrong. Somewhere in my fifties I had settled into the plain-tee life, one safe shape in six safe colors, and my top half had been on autopilot ever since.

Why the prints never made it home

It was not that I never tried. Every season I would pick up something printed, hold it at arm's length, and put it back.

Because prints, in the stores, come in exactly two strengths. There are the timid ones, tiny florals that read as plain from four feet away, so why bother. And there are the loud ones, tropical statements that wear you instead of the other way around.

What nobody seemed to make was a clever print. Something with wit in it that did not shout. So the paint sample life continued, one identical tee at a time.

Then I saw the stripes get along

Sue wore something to book club in June that stopped the room, a vivid blue shirt made of woven blocks of fine stripes, light blue and soft green, each block turned a different way, like a quilt somebody thought hard about.

It should not have worked and it absolutely worked. It is from Iris & Nora, a small boutique here in Austin that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now, and it is called the Abigail. I ordered mine before book club had finished discussing a book none of us had read.

The trick is that every block lives in the same blue-and-green family, so the shirt reads as clever rather than loud. The interesting has been done FOR you, by somebody with an eye, and no styling is required on your end at all. It is light as a breeze, cut generously, and the curved shirttail hem covers what I like covered.

Buttoned up, it is a proper blouse. Worn open over a plain white tee, it is the finishing layer, and my six paint-sample tees have suddenly all found a job as the thing underneath it.

What happened at coffee hour

I wore it to coffee hour on Sunday, open over a white tee, sleeves pushed up.

Three different women asked me where it was from. And Sue, who started all this, looked at me wearing her discovery and declared herself a trendsetter, which we have all agreed to allow.

But the part I keep coming back to is what one of them actually said, which was, you always wear such interesting things. I do not. I have never worn an interesting thing in my life. But the shirt has opinions, and apparently I get the credit for them, which is the best arrangement I have ever entered into.

It has been out four times in two weeks, over jeans, over white pants, over one of the six tees. It goes with everything I own, because everything I own is plain, which it turns out was the perfect preparation.

Three things I have learned since

One. A clever print does the work. The woven blocks read as taste, not volume. People assume you know about style. You are not required to correct them.

Two. It is two garments in one. A blouse when buttoned, a light summer layer when open. The second use is the one I reach for most, and it made every plain tee I own more interesting by association.

Three. The sizing is honest. Small to 5XL, the same relaxed generous cut the whole way up, with a shirttail hem that does the covering without the clinging.

About the price

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

The Abigail is $43.95. It was $88.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because shirts with this much design in them usually price the design in twice.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and they run a summer sale to move the season's stock.

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. One woman had written, “I get compliments every single time, it goes with everything I own, and it is the least boring thing in my closet by a mile.” That was the one that decided it for me.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sitting on the porch with an iced tea and you asked me, this is what I would say.

Open your tee drawer and be honest about what you see. If it is one shape in six safe colors, you have been on autopilot like I was, and the fix is not becoming a different woman. It is one shirt where somebody else already did the thinking.

Not because a blouse changes anything. It does not. But being told you wear interesting things, by women you have known for years, is a small delight I can now personally recommend.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and the middle sizes are the ones that go first. And once this stock is gone, it is gone.

I am no longer a paint sample. My daughter has been informed.

Peggy