Half my closet is tops I feel nothing about. This is a letter about the other kind
Half my closet is tops I feel nothing about. This is a letter about the other kind
Six things the Marlowe gets right that the others get wrong, from a customer who checked the stitching.
Peggy Dalton · Customer · Austin, Texas · 5 min read
I am Peggy, I am 63, and I want to say at the start that I do not work for anybody and the closest I come to fashion is my quilting circle. What I have done is buy tops, for forty years, and feel nothing about most of them.
The one I am writing about is called the Marlowe, from Iris & Nora, a small boutique here in Austin that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I own it in two colours, the woman who put me onto it owns all three, and when the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Here is what forty years of buying taught me. Tops at our age come in two piles. The plain ones, safe as a paper bag and about as interesting, and the fussy ones, with the beads and the slogans and the cold shoulders, that wear you instead of the other way around. I bought from the first pile for years and felt invisible in every one of them.
Plain and invisible, or fussy and not quite you. Those seemed to be the choices, and I had settled.
The Marlowe is the first top I have owned that refuses both piles, and having gone over it like a suspicious woman goes over a bargain, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it arrived. I inspected it like a quilt judge.
The colour bands do the interesting for you
Broad soft waves of colour, a blue, a lavender, a deep olive, flowing into each other like a watercolour left in the rain. It reads as artistic rather than loud, because the colours all live in one calm family, and there is no styling required on your end at all.
People ask if it is hand-dyed. It does all the work over plain pants, which is all I own.
Carol R., Round RockThe zigzag stitching makes it look hand-finished
Down the front runs a little line of zigzag stitching, the kind of detail you would expect from something made by a person rather than a factory. It is a small thing, and it is exactly the small thing people notice.
The stitching, up close. My quilting circle approved, and they do not approve easily.
The stitching detail is what sold me. It looks like something from a craft fair, in the best way.
Diane M., GeorgetownThe hem crosses over, so nothing clings or tucks
The bottom crosses itself at an angle and drops to a soft point, so it covers your hips and your seat without ever clinging, and there is no tucking in and no arranging when you stand. It hangs right on its own, all day.
The crossover hem. Covers everything, clings to nothing.
The angled hem covers my hips without looking baggy. Exactly the shape I always hope for and never find.
Patricia L., Cedar ParkThe sleeves stay out of your way
Wide, airy sleeves that end just short of the wrist in a soft flare. Cool when it is warm, covered when it is cool, and never trailing in the dishwater or needing to be pushed up every five minutes while your hands are busy.
The sleeves are genius. Covered arms, no heat, and they never once ended up in the sink.
Linda K., San MarcosIt pulls on, and that is the whole procedure
No buttons, no zip, no thinking. Over the head, a shake, done. It is loose everywhere a top should be loose and it weighs about as much as a handkerchief, which in a Texas summer is not a small consideration.
Light as air and on in two seconds. I reach for it before everything else on warm days.
Janet S., New BraunfelsThree colourways, honest sizing
The blue, a warm ochre yellow and a coral red, each with its own pair of band colours, so they read as three different tops rather than one top photocopied. And they run from a small to a 5XL in the same relaxed shape, which is rarer than it should be.
The three of them together. I said one. I own two. You can see where this is going.
I bought the yellow and went back for the blue. They go with every pair of pants I own.
Maureen T., PflugervilleThe Marlowe, against the tops you have been buying
You can find a casual top for seventy dollars almost anywhere. I know, because I have bought a great many of them. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Plain as a paper bag, or fussy and loud
A straight hem that clings or needs tucking
Sleeves that trail in everything
Details that look factory-made
Sizing that stops just when it gets honest
Soft artistic colour bands in one calm family
Angled crossover hem that covers without clinging
Airy sleeves that stop short of the wrist
Hand-finished zigzag stitching down the front
Same relaxed shape from S to 5XL
About the price
The Marlowe is $36.95 at the moment. It was $74.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that this is their final summer sale as they close this chapter of the shop, and once this stock is gone, it is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that at that price I did not deliberate long over the second colour, and that the popular colours were already thin in the middle sizes when I went back.
I also did what I imagine you are doing now and read the reviews before my first order. 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. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
Folded and ready for the drawer. It rarely makes it that far.
If your closet is full of tops you feel nothing about, this is the one I would put in your hands myself, while the colours are still in stock.
Peggy
MARLOWE | Colour-Band Tunic Top
- Soft wavy colour bands in one calm family
- Hand-finished zigzag stitch detail
- Angled crossover hem, covers without clinging
- Wide airy sleeves that stop short of the wrist
- Pulls straight on, no buttons or zips
- Three colourways, sizes S to 5XL
- FREE shipping & 100% happiness guarantee
Final summer sale on now. The popular colours go first.