Six things, laid out plainly

I have spent forty-odd years watching my husband go out either too hot or too cold. This is the first jacket I have ever written a letter about.

Six things this plain gray jacket gets right that a big winter coat and a flannel shirt never could, from a wife who went back for a second color before the month was out.

Peggy Dalton · Customer · Austin, Texas · 5 min read

I will not keep you guessing about who wrote this. I am Peggy, I am 63, and I live in Austin, Texas, with my husband Frank, who is 67. I have been buying that man his coats and jackets for longer than some of you have been alive, and not once have I thought one worth writing home about, let alone writing to strangers about. Well. I have changed my mind.

The jacket I am writing about is the Edward, from Iris and Nora, a small boutique here in Austin that has been quietly dressing women like us for a few years now. It is a plain, light men’s jacket with one zipper up the front, a real collar and gathered cuffs. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.

I first saw it on the Saturday train. Since he retired, Frank has ridden the old excursion train out of Cedar Park up to Burnet on the first Saturday of every month, and I go along for the pie at the café on the square. There is a man who is always at the end of the platform at the old depot in Burnet, watching the engine come in, and whatever the weather is doing, he looks exactly right. Sun first thing, drizzle by lunch, the wind coming straight across the hills, and there he is, never too hot, never huddled, collar up when he wants it and open when he does not. I had assumed he simply did not feel the cold. Then I noticed he was in gray one month and navy the next. The same jacket, two colors. At the café I asked his wife, plainly. Her name is Gayle, she bought him both, and she wrote the name on the back of my train ticket. Read on.

The gray one, over the back of Frank’s chair, where it lands the minute he is through the door.

Here is what forty-odd years of watching a man get dressed to go out taught me. He has two choices, and both are wrong. The big winter coat, which he is boiling in by ten o’clock and then carries over his arm for the rest of the day. Or no coat at all, just his flannel shirt, because it looked fine through the kitchen window, and he comes home frozen with the wind gone straight up his back.

A man his age either goes out dressed for January or dressed for the kitchen. I had stopped expecting to find anything in between, and I had certainly stopped expecting him to wear it.

This is the first thing I have bought him that sits in between, and having watched him live in it through a blustery end of September, two train Saturdays and more evening walks around the block than I could count, I can tell you it comes down to six things.

The morning it came. I opened it on the bed to get a good look before he could get his hands on it.

1

It is light, made for the in-between weather

This is the one Gayle put at the top of her list, and she was right. The Edward is a lightweight jacket, and the boutique describes it as giving just the right level of warmth without overheating, for when the seasons are shifting. That is the whole of Frank’s problem in one sentence. He is not cooking in it by the time the train pulls out, and he is not carrying it around Burnet over his arm all afternoon either. It goes on at the door and it stays on.

Saturday morning, open over his checked shirt at the front door. He did not go back in for the big coat. That is a first.

★★★★★

My husband used to wear his winter coat from September and complain he was too hot. This is light enough that he keeps it on all day.

Debbie T., Harlingen

2

The cuffs and the hem stay put

Both cuffs and the hem are gathered with elastic, and the boutique says it gives a snug, stay-put feel that blocks the wind. I can tell you what that means on a depot platform in the Hill Country. The sleeves do not ride up to his elbows when he leans on the rail, and the wind does not get in at the bottom and straight up his back, which is what always sent him home in a mood in just his flannel shirt.

Folded on our kitchen table. That gathered cuff is the bit that keeps the wind out of his sleeves.

★★★★★

The elastic at the wrists and the bottom is what sold it to him. No draft up the back when he is bent over the car engine.

Glenda F., Port Isabel

3

One zipper, and a collar that stands up

There is one zipper, right up the front from the hem to the collar, with nothing to do up wrong and no row of snaps to fight with in cold fingers. Zipped to the top, the collar stands up around his neck, which is how the man on the platform wears it when the wind comes across the hills. Unzipped, it hangs open over his shirt and he looks dressed for the café. Same jacket, two looks, one zipper.

Frank in the backyard, zipped up with the collar up, leaves everywhere. I did not have to tug at a thing.

★★★★★

Zipped up to the chin out on the fishing pier and open in the café. It looks sharp both ways and he can zip it with his gloves on.

Rosa B., Port Isabel

6

It goes with what he already owns, in five colors

With Frank, this is the whole battle. He will not wear anything that means buying something else to go with it. The Edward is plain and clean-lined, and the boutique says it goes with jeans, chinos or joggers, so it went with everything he owns on the first morning. It comes in five colors, gray, blue, which is a real navy, black, khaki and green, and in sizes from M right up to 5XL. I went back for the green. Gayle tells me the khaki is next on her list.

Train Saturday. Cap, keys, jacket. He is ready before I am now.

★★★★★

Bought the navy for his birthday and he wears it with jeans and with his good slacks. Now he has asked for the gray one as well.

Linda M., Harlingen

The Edward, against what he has been making do with

You can carry on watching him go out either dressed for January or dressed for the kitchen, like I did for forty years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.

About the price

The Edward is $45.95, down from $92.00. Every color and every size is the same price.

I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that it is on sale while the first of the fall stock goes, and once a color sells through in a size, that one is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that I have spent more than $92.00 over the years on jackets for Frank that went to the thrift store inside a year, so $45.95 for one he actually puts on made it an easy yes.

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 people 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 wives’ words.

If your husband is forever going out either too hot or too cold, or he has quietly stopped wearing the coat you bought him, this is where I would start. Take a look at the colors before his size goes, because once this stock is gone, it is gone. And if you ever see a man at the end of the platform in Burnet looking more comfortable than anybody has a right to in a wind like that, you will know where I got the idea.

Peggy

THE EDWARD MEN’S JACKET

★★★★☆ 4.2 out of 5 from 300+ reviews

$92.00 $45.95

• Lightweight, for the in-between seasons
• Elastic cuffs and hem that stay put
• One front zipper with a stand-up collar
• Regular comfort fit, easy to move in
• Made to stand up to daily wear
• Five colors, sizes M to 5XL
• Free shipping

See If His Size Is Still In Stock

Sale on now. The first fall stock is already going.