A letter from a reader

At 63, I kept saving my favourite clothes for a someday that never came

I have never written anything like this before, and I nearly did not. But I have said it to enough friends now that it seemed easier to just write it down.

I had developed a quiet habit. Anything with a bit of personality, a real colour, an interesting print, got saved for good. For actual days I wore the safe, dull things, because the interesting ones felt like too much effort or too likely to crease. So the nicest things in my closet were the ones I almost never wore.

Interesting, or comfortable. I had quietly put all my interesting clothes away for good.

Which meant that on the days I most wanted to feel like myself, I looked the least like her.

I did not decide to dress like that. It happens one cautious morning at a time, until "save it for good" has quietly become "never wear it at all."

How it happens

The interesting clothes tend to be the impractical ones, stiff or fussy or needing an occasion. And the comfortable clothes tend to be the plain ones. So personality and comfort end up on opposite sides of the closet, and comfort wins every ordinary morning.

You tell yourself you will wear the lovely things soon. Soon rarely comes.

And you spend your actual life in the clothes you like the least.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong. I thought a dress with real personality had to be uncomfortable, or precious, or saved.

It does not. This one looks like a piece of modern art, all bold blues and yellows, but it is soft washed linen cut loose and easy, so it genuinely wears like my most comfortable thing. There is nothing to save it for, because it is comfortable enough for anything.

Interesting and comfortable, in the same dress. That is the combination I had assumed did not exist, and it took me until 63 to find it.

The dress is called the Harper

It is from Iris & Nora, a little boutique here in Austin that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now.

The dress is called the Harper. A relaxed linen dress in a bold, abstract art print, all blues and yellows with a flash of pink, a soft V-neck, and an easy, relaxed cut. They do a whole collection of these prints, which is how I ended up with more than one.

It looks like something you would frame, so I feel like I have made an effort, but it is loose, breathable linen that only gets softer with washing, so it feels like nothing at all. It is the one I reach for on the days with no plan, and those turn out to be the days people compliment me most.

That is really all there is to it. It is not complicated. It is just an interesting dress you are actually allowed to wear.

What happened at the cafe

I wore it to potter around the galleries and then to lunch, no fuss at all.

Three women stopped to ask me where it was from before I had sat down. One of them was my friend Sue, who never comments on clothes, and who said I looked like an artist. I have decided to take that as the highest compliment.

What stayed with me, though, was that I felt the most like myself I had in ages, doing nothing special at all. Comfortable the whole day, interesting to look at, no fuss. I have barely taken it off since.

Three things I have learned since

One. The print does the work. A bold, artful pattern looks like real effort, so you do not have to add a thing to feel dressed.

Two. Washed linen is the secret. It looks considered but wears like your softest t-shirt, and it only improves the more you wear it.

Three. Stop saving things. The lovely dress you actually wear beats the lovely dress in the closet every single day, and I feel silly for the years I got that backwards.

About the price

I will be honest, the price made me a little suspicious.

The Harper is $53.95. It was $106.00.

My first thought was that there had to be a catch, because a proper linen dress this striking usually costs a good deal more.

There is no catch that I have found. It is a small boutique selling directly, and they run a summer sale to move the season's stock. I read the reviews before I ordered a second color, the way I imagine you are doing now. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some sites, which if anything made me trust it more. The same things kept coming up. One woman had written, “Everyone asks about this dress and it is secretly the comfiest thing I own. The linen only gets softer.” That was the one that decided it for me.

What I would tell you if we were friends

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

If you have a wardrobe of lovely things you never actually wear because they are not comfortable, or you are saving them, it is worth ten minutes of an evening to take a look.

Not because a dress changes anything. It does not. But wearing the interesting thing on an ordinary day, and feeling like yourself doing it, is a small thing I had stopped letting myself have, and I would rather you did not either.

The sale is on now, they come in a whole collection of prints from a small to a 4XL, and the nicest ones go first.

Nothing in my closet is saved for someday anymore.

Peggy