A letter from a reader

AT 67, EVERY EVENING OUT MEANT THE SAME SAFE OUTFIT I DID NOT EVEN LIKE

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 four different women asked me about this at my niece's garden party here in Charleston on Saturday evening, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

It is the getting dressed I want to tell you about first. Any evening that called for something other than my everyday trousers had quietly worn me down, if I am honest. I would stand in front of the wardrobe, and my hand would go to the same place it always did.

The same safe outfit, and a feeling that I was making do rather than getting dressed, every single time.

I would put it on and think, well, that will do, because it always did, and then get on with the evening feeling a little as though I had given up before it had even started.

I did not choose that, not really. Nobody decides to dress like that. It happens quietly, one sensible purchase at a time, until getting dressed for an evening stops being a choice at all and becomes a habit you cannot quite remember agreeing to.

How it happens

I used to enjoy getting dressed for an evening out. In my thirties I had a green coat I loved so much I wore it until the lining went.

What changed was not me. It was the shops.

Somewhere along the way the department stores decided that women over a certain age want to be invisible. Go and look. Rail after rail of the same stiff, forgettable pieces, all of it described as classic or timeless, which we all know by now is a polite way of saying nobody thought about you very hard.

And once that is all there is, you stop expecting anything else. You buy the safe outfit because it will not embarrass you. You wear it to everything. Nobody says anything, which is rather the point.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong, and I think a lot of us have.

I had decided, somewhere along the way, that I had to choose. Either I was comfortable, or I looked as though I had made an effort, and I could not possibly be both.

It turns out that was never true.

I have since paid proper attention to this, and the thing that makes an outfit look tired is not whether it is comfortable. It is the shape of it, whether it hangs off you like a sack or actually skims you. It is whether it was thought about at all. And it is the colour, or the total absence of one.

Something cut loose so it skims instead of swallowing you, that adjusts to your own shape, in a print you actually like, reads completely differently. It reads as a decision. That is the whole difference, and it took me until 67 to work it out.

The printed overalls that changed my mind

They are from Dorothy & June, a small American boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now.

They are the Comfortable Printed Overalls. A soft grey base covered in an embroidered wildflower print, pinks and reds and little green stems scattered all over, the kind of print that looks as though it has always been yours. Wide, relaxed legs, deep side pockets, and straps that adjust so the fit is exactly your own.

They are light and breathable, which for an evening outside mattered more than I expected. Best of all they are one piece, so getting dressed is one decision and then it is done. The cut is relaxed and it skims rather than clings, and there is nothing to fuss with once the straps are set.

That is really all there is to it. It is not complicated. It is just something that somebody thought about.

What happened at the garden party

I wore them for the first time to a garden party at my niece's, with a plain white top, gold hoops, and my good sandals.

Four women asked me where they were from. Four. One of them was Carol, who I have known since our children were small and who has never once commented on anything I have worn.

She said I looked nicely put together. From Carol, that is practically a standing ovation.

What I noticed more than the asking, though, was that I forgot about myself. I did not spend the evening tugging at anything or wondering whether something had ridden up. I sat, I stood to catch up with old friends, I helped clear plates, and I did not think about what I had on once.

The next morning I put them straight back on for errands around town, and felt completely myself. That is the rarest sort of thing. The one you can wear for an evening out, or round the house of a Sunday, and feel right in either way.

Three things I have learned since

One. The sizing is honest. They run from a small all the way to a 5XL, and it is the same easy cut the whole way up, not a different shape once you pass a certain number. I wish more places would bother with that.

Two. You stop thinking about getting dressed. They are one piece, so it is one decision and then it is done. The straps adjust so the fit is exactly mine, and after that there is nothing to fuss with all evening.

Three. The print does the quiet work. It is a statement print, but a calm one, so a plain top underneath and you are styled. Gold hoops and sandals for an evening out, and a light cardigan over the top when it turns cool.

About the price

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

They are $49.95. They were $109.95.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because you can walk into any department store and pay more than that for something that will have lost its shape by August.

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 shift the season's stock before it turns.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered. Just under nine hundred of them, sitting at 4.8 stars. One woman had written, "The most comfortable thing I own and it looks like I planned it. I practically live in them." That was the one that decided it for me.

Then I went back and ordered a second color.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat on my porch and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you have spent the last few years reaching for the same safe outfit for every evening out, not because you like it but because nothing else felt like you, then it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look.

Not because a pair of overalls will change your life. It will not. But there is something in getting dressed for an evening and actually recognizing yourself that I had quietly given up on, and I would rather you did not give up on it too.

Two practical things. The sale is on at the moment, and only a handful are left, which I found out the hard way when I went back for a second color. And once the summer stock has sold through, that is it until next year.

I have not reached for that old outfit since.

Amy