My gardening clothes were whatever got demoted. This is a letter about the pair I bought on purpose
My gardening clothes were whatever got demoted. This is a letter about the pair I bought on purpose
Six things these dungarees get right that gardening clothes get wrong, from a woman whose working wardrobe was built from things too shabby for anywhere else.
Amy Johnson · Customer · Charleston, SC · 5 min read
I am 68, I keep an allotment, and I have never sold a stitch of clothing in my life. What I have done, for forty years, is garden in whatever got demoted. The trousers with the paint on them. The fleece with the zip gone. A whole working wardrobe assembled from things too shabby to wear anywhere else, which is how half the neighborhood has seen me most mornings since I retired. So this is not a review. It is a woman who finally bought her working clothes on purpose, saying why.
The pair I am writing about is called the Comfortable Printed Overalls, from Dorothy & June, a small American boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I first saw them on the woman with the plot two down from mine, and when the boutique later 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 gardening taught me about gardening clothes. They come in two piles. The demoted pile, which works, and looks exactly like what it is, so you duck behind the shed when somebody you know walks past. And the pile you actually like, which never comes to the allotment, because one morning of bending and kneeling and bindweed would finish it. Somewhere along the way I accepted that a woman gardens in her worst clothes, and that was that.
Clothes that could take the allotment and looked demoted, or clothes I liked that never left the house. I ducked behind the shed for years.
These dungarees are the first thing I have owned that refuses both piles, and having dug, netted, kneeled and argued with the bindweed in them for a month, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning they arrived. A meadow growing up from the hems, on a working pair of dungarees. I did not know both things were allowed at once.
The bib covers the middle, and the straps stay put
Bend, kneel, reach. The bib is there the whole time, so there is no gap at the back and no waistband digging in at the front, and the straps button once and do not slide off the shoulder every four minutes, which every apron I have owned could learn from.
No waistband digging in when I kneel and nothing gaping when I bend. The straps stay exactly where I buttoned them.
Carol R., Nashville, TNThe leg is loose, so kneeling is nothing
Squatting to the strawberries, kneeling to the weeds, up and down the plot all morning. The leg is cut easy, so nothing pulls at the knee and nothing needs hitching. My old demoted trousers made every kneel a negotiation. These do not notice.
Knelt all morning planting out and never once thought about the trousers. That has genuinely never happened.
Diane M., Savannah, GAThe flowers work as hard as you do
The meadow grows up from the hems, poppies and daisies and little butterflies, and besides being the reason three people have stopped me at the gate, it hides what the allotment throws at it. A bit of soil, a smear of tomato leaf. On plain trousers that is a stain. On these it disappears into the garden.
The meadow, close up. Pretty on purpose, and very forgiving of actual soil.
Prettiest thing I own and it hides the dirt better than my old gardening trousers ever did.
Patricia L., Richmond, VAWashed soft, and getting softer
They arrived soft, the way a favourite pair takes years to get, and every wash has made them better. Nothing stiff, nothing to break in, nothing that creases into ridges at the knee. Out of the machine, on the line, back on the plot.
Soft from the first wear, like they were already ten years old in the good way. Washed weekly and better every time.
Linda K., Columbia, SCOn in one go, cuffs out of the mud
Over a t-shirt, straps on, done. No layers to arrange, no tucking, no belt. And the cuffs roll once and stay rolled, so the hems spend the morning above the mud instead of in it, which is where every other trouser hem I own has lived.
The bib and the buttons. That is the whole system, and it takes ten seconds.
T-shirt, dungarees, out the door. Ten seconds. And the rolled cuffs actually stay rolled.
Janet S., Raleigh, NCA pink pair too, and sizes S to 5XL
The grey meadow I own, and there is a pink pair with a bouquet across the bib for the braver morning, cut the same, from an S right up to a 5XL, which I wish more places would bother with. I went back for the pink. The woman two plots down owns both and alternates, which is how I know Tuesday from Thursday.
The two of them on the bed. Same cut, two moods, one allotment.
Bought the grey for the garden and the pink for everything else. I am a 4XL and they fit like the small sizes look.
Maureen T., Charlotte, NCThese dungarees, against the gardening clothes you have been wearing
Nobody buys gardening clothes. That is the problem. They get demoted into the job, and they look it. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Waistband digging in at every kneel
A gap at the back every time you bend
Paint stains, gone zips, bobbled knees
Hems dragging in the mud
Ducking behind the shed when someone walks past
A bib instead of a waistband
Covered, bending, kneeling, reaching
A meadow that hides honest dirt
Rolled cuffs that stay rolled
Stopped at the gate and asked where they are from
About the price
The overalls are $49.95 at the moment. They were $109.95.
I am careful with money and I will not pretend otherwise, so I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that they are a small shop selling directly and they run a summer sale to shift the season's stock before it turns. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that at that price I did not deliberate long over the pink, and that the middle sizes were already thin when I went back.
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, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women's words.
Folded on the kitchen table after a week on the plot. Back on by Tuesday. The demoted pile has been retired, which it will understand.
If your gardening clothes are whatever got demoted, this is the pair I would put in your hands myself, while your size is still there.
Amy
COMFORTABLE PRINTED OVERALLS | Grey Wildflower
- Bib instead of a waistband, covered when you bend and kneel
- Straps that button and stay put
- Loose easy leg, washed soft and getting softer
- A wildflower meadow that hides honest dirt
- Rolled cuffs that stay out of the mud
- Grey or pink, sizes S to 5XL
- FREE US delivery & 100% happiness guarantee
Summer sale on now. The middle sizes go first.