An illustrated letter about dressing for the happy days

At 68, I was going to wear my "funeral suit" to my granddaughter's wedding. My daughter said I'd spent so long dressing for sad days, I'd forgotten how to dress for happy ones.

Every woman of a certain age owns one. Mine is navy, a trouser suit with a single button and a jacket that sits just below the hip. I bought it at a department store in the city twelve years ago, the week my husband Graham died, because nothing in my wardrobe felt solemn enough for the service.

It was a good purchase. That is the honest truth. It has been to Graham's funeral, then my brother-in-law's, then two neighbours', and the memorial for a woman from my church choir who sang alto beside me for nineteen years. It has also been to three christenings, a sixtieth, two weddings and a citizenship ceremony. When something important happens, the navy suit comes out of the dry-cleaning bag and does its duty.

So when my granddaughter Ellie told us she and her Tom had booked a spring wedding at a winery out in the Swan Valley, I knew exactly what I would wear. I didn't even think about it. I took the suit out, checked the button, and hung it on the front of the wardrobe like a soldier waiting for orders.

My daughter Claire came over for a cuppa the following Sunday. She noticed it before she'd even put her handbag down.

"Mum," she said. "Is that the suit?"

"It's a perfectly good suit."

"It's the suit you wore to Dad's funeral."

"And to your cousin's wedding," I pointed out. "Nobody complained."

She sat down at the kitchen table, looked at me for a long moment, and said something I have thought about every day since.

"You've been dressing for sad days for so long, Mum, I think you've forgotten how to dress for happy ones."

I laughed, because that's what you do when somebody says something true and you aren't ready for it. Then I put the kettle back on, mostly so I had something to do with my hands.

The wardrobe of a sensible widow

After Claire went home, I did something I hadn't done in years. I opened the wardrobe properly, not just to grab the first thing on the left. I took every hanger out and laid the lot across the bed.

It was not a cheerful exhibition. Grey cardigans. Black trousers in three slightly different cuts. Beige linen I wear to the shops. Two "good" blouses, both in colours a magazine once described as "quietly flattering," which I now suspect meant "invisible." And the suit, of course, back in its bag, waiting.

Nothing in that wardrobe was wrong. Everything was clean, practical and appropriate. But I couldn't find one single garment that looked as though it belonged to a woman who might dance.

Somewhere along the way, I'd started choosing clothes the way you choose a casserole dish: will it go with everything, will it last, will anyone notice it? I'd made myself very good at not being noticed. At funerals, that's a kindness. At your granddaughter's wedding, it's something closer to absence.

I sat on the edge of the bed among all that grey and beige, and I'll admit I felt a bit silly. Sixty-eight years old, upset about clothes. Graham would have teased me. Then he would have told me to go and buy something pretty, and he'd have meant it.

Why I kept saying "no" to every dress

The trouble was that I didn't actually know what I was looking for. I knew what I didn't want, which is a different thing entirely.

I didn't want anything tight through the middle. Gravity and I reached an understanding around my sixtieth birthday, and I have no interest in reopening negotiations.

I didn't want bare arms. I don't mind my arms in the garden, but I didn't want to spend a wedding tugging at a wrap that kept sliding off my shoulders.

I didn't want anything short, and I didn't want anything stiff. Ellie had warned us the ceremony was on the lawn, then dinner under a big pergola, then dancing. Swan Valley afternoons in late October can be properly warm, and I'd be standing, sitting, standing and hugging for the better part of eight hours.

And, if I'm truthful, I didn't want anything that looked like I was trying to be the bride's mother. Claire is the mother of the bride. I'm the grandmother. There's a quiet dignity to that role, and I wanted to honour it without disappearing into the hedge.

Every dress I tried in the shops that fortnight failed at least one test. One was beautiful but sleeveless. One had sleeves but clung like cling film. One was perfectly modest and made me look as though I'd come to read the will.

The small thing I'd got wrong

It was Ellie who changed my thinking, though she didn't mean to. She came round one evening with her laptop to show me the seating plan, and we ended up scrolling through photos of the venue: the vines, the long tables, the big old gum near the lawn where they'd say their vows.

"It's going to be soft, Nan," she said. "Not formal-formal. Just pretty. I want everyone to feel lovely."

Soft. That was the word I'd been missing. I had been searching for a dress that was correct, the way the navy suit is correct. What I actually needed was something soft: something that moved, that let the air in, that looked gentle in photographs taken in the late afternoon light.

I'd been treating "covered" and "soft" as opposites, as though the only way to cover your arms and middle was with something structured and serious. It hadn't occurred to me that fabric could do both jobs at once.

Finding Abella

I found the dress on Perth Boutique, a local shop I'd ordered sandals from before. I'd gone looking under their elegant dresses and almost scrolled past, because the first picture was a lovely deep blue and I thought, "Navy again, Maggie? Really?"

But it wasn't the navy of my suit. Looking closer, it was a richer, softer blue, and the dress was nothing like a suit at all. It's called the Abella, a lace and chiffon dress. The listing describes a lace bodice with a flowing chiffon skirt, and in the photographs you could see exactly what that meant.

The top half is lace, with a round neckline and a sheer lace yoke across the shoulders and chest. The sleeves are lace too, falling to about the elbow. From the waist down, it's all chiffon, a full-length maxi skirt with soft layers and a draped panel at the front that falls in loose folds.

I looked at it for a long time. Sleeves, but not heavy ones. A skirt that wouldn't cling. Lace that felt special without being fussy. And a colour I already knew suited me, just a happier version of it.

It comes in four colours: Blue, White, Floral and Forest Green. I briefly considered the green, but white was out of the question for obvious reasons. I chose the Blue, ordered my usual size because the listing says it's a classic fit, and then spent two days telling myself I'd probably send it back.

The afternoon it arrived

The parcel came on a Thursday. I put it on the dining table and walked around it twice like a cat inspecting a cardboard box. Then I carried it into the bedroom and laid the dress out on the bed.

Two weeks earlier, that same bed had been covered in grey and beige. Now there was this dress spread across it, the skirt fanned out across the quilt and the lace sleeves resting neatly at its sides. I stood in the doorway and felt something I can only describe as shy.

The first thing I noticed was the weight, or rather the lack of it. The listing calls the dress light and comfortable, and in the hand that's how it felt to me. The chiffon moved when I lifted it, the way a curtain moves when you open a window.

The second thing I noticed was the lace. I'd worried it might be scratchy or stiff, the way cheap lace can be. In person, it had a lovely detailed pattern that caught the light from the window.

How it actually fit

I'll be candid here, because I'd want someone to be candid with me. Every body is different, and what suits mine might not suit yours. But this is what I found.

The dress fastens with a zip at the back. I'll confess I needed a moment and a bit of shoulder wriggling, the way I do with most back zips these days, but I managed it on my own.

The lace sleeves were the part I'd worried about most, and they turned out to be the part I loved. They cover the tops of the arms without feeling hot or heavy. Because the yoke is sheer lace, there's a bit of air across the shoulders, and it looks delicate rather than buttoned-up.

Through the middle, the chiffon skirt simply falls. It doesn't grab at the tummy or the hips. The draped panel at the front moves when you walk and settles again when you stand still. It felt more like wearing a breeze than a dress.

The length came to my ankles, which suited me perfectly with low heels. If you're shorter or taller than average, check the length on the listing before you order. I'm a fairly ordinary five foot five.

Then I did the thing I had been avoiding. I walked down the hall to the long mirror on the back of the linen cupboard door. I didn't look like a widow. I didn't look like someone trying too hard, either. I looked like a grandmother on her way to a wedding, which is exactly what I was.

The morning of the wedding

On the Saturday morning I was up at half past five, which is ridiculous, because the ceremony wasn't until three. I hung the dress by the bedroom window while I had my tea, and watched the early light come through the chiffon.

The navy suit was still in the wardrobe, by the way. I'd kept it there "just in case," the way you keep an umbrella in the car. Claire rang at nine to ask, very casually, which outfit I'd decided on.

"The blue," I said.

"The suit blue, or the new blue?"

"The new blue, Claire."

There was a short silence on the line, and then she said, "Good," in a voice that made me suspect she'd been worrying more than she'd let on.

The drive out to the Swan Valley was warm, with the air conditioning on and the windows of every passing car down. I'd worried I might arrive crumpled and wilted, but the chiffon came out of the car looking just as it had gone in.

What happened at the winery

I won't bore you with every detail of the day, although I'd happily tell you about it over a long lunch. Ellie looked radiant, Tom cried before she'd even reached the end of the aisle, and the old gum tree behaved itself beautifully as a backdrop.

Two moments stay with me, though.

The first was during the photographs. The photographer called for "the grandparents," and for one terrible second I nearly hung back the way I usually do, half behind someone else's shoulder. Then Ellie reached over, took my hand and pulled me into the middle. "Front row, Nan," she said. "You're in the good dress." I've been tucking myself into the back of photographs for years. I stood in the front of that one.

The second was later, at dinner under the pergola, when Tom's grandmother leaned across the table to me. She's a lovely woman from Bunbury, a few years older than me, in a smart cream jacket. "I've been admiring your sleeves all afternoon," she said. "I never know what to do about my arms in this heat." We spent twenty minutes talking about arms, hems and the general unfairness of formalwear, and by dessert we'd swapped phone numbers.

I had worn the navy suit to so many goodbyes. It felt right to wear something new to a beginning.

And yes, I danced. Not well, and not for long, but I danced. The skirt swirled when Ellie's brother spun me round to some song I didn't recognise. For three minutes I forgot about my knees, my arms and everything else, and I just enjoyed being part of it.

Three things I learned

Covered doesn't have to mean serious. I had spent years believing that if I wanted to cover my arms and middle, I had to accept something heavy and formal. Lace sleeves and a flowing chiffon skirt did the same job, and they did it gently.

Your "safe" outfit can quietly become a habit of hiding. The navy suit never let me down. But it had turned every important occasion into the same occasion, and I had stopped noticing the difference between a sad day and a happy one.

The people who love you are usually waiting for permission to say so. Claire had been looking at that suit for years. Ellie wanted me in the front row. I only had to give them the chance.

About the price, plainly

I'm careful with money. A pension teaches you that, and so does a husband who kept every receipt in a shoebox for forty years. So I'll tell you exactly what I know.

When I'm writing this, the Abella is listed on Perth Boutique at $94.95 AUD, the same price for all four colours. The listing shows a regular price of $313.00. I can't tell you anything about that higher figure. I can only tell you what I paid and that I felt the dress was worth it to me.

It comes in sizes S through to 3XL, and the listing says it's a classic fit, so choose your usual size. I did, and it fit me as I've described. Delivery was free, sent with Australia Post, and the shop lists a money-back guarantee. Have a look at their Returns & Refunds page for the details before you order, as I always do.

For a dress I wore to the happiest family day we've had in years, and which I fully intend to wear again, it felt like money well spent. That is not something I say about many dresses.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If we were sitting across a kitchen table, I'd ask you to go and look in your wardrobe. Not the whole thing, just the outfit you reach for when something important comes up.

Ask yourself when you bought it, and what day it was bought for. If, like me, the answer is a sad one, it might be time to let that outfit rest.

There will always be more funerals at our age. That's simply true, and I don't say it to be gloomy. But there will be weddings too, and christenings, birthdays, long lunches and afternoons on the lawn. They deserve something that looks like joy.

The navy suit is still in my wardrobe. I'll wear it again when a sad day comes, and I'll be grateful for it. But it no longer gets every important day. Some days are for something softer.

Some days ask you to be dignified. Some days ask you to dance. It took me twelve years to remember the difference.

With love from Perth,
Maggie