A letter from a reader

At 70, I paid ninety dollars in excess baggage and came home having worn four things out of twenty-two.

You should picture me writing this at the kitchen table with a cup of tea going cold beside me, because that is exactly how slowly it has come. I am not a writer, and what another woman packs has never been any of my business.

But three different women have asked me about this dress since we got back, two of them on the same flight home, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it all down properly.

It started at the check-in desk at Perth, three weeks ago, with a young man telling me very politely that my case was four kilos over. I paid it. And then on the last night of the trip I was repacking on a hotel bed and my friend Bev, who had come with the one case and never once mentioned it, watched me fold the same untouched blouse for the third time and said it.

You have worn four things, Maggie. You brought twenty-two and you have worn four.

I laughed, and then I counted, and she was right. Four. The two dresses I actually liked, one cardigan and the trousers I travelled in. Everything else had been carried to Europe and back for the sole purpose of being in the case, at ninety dollars and a sore shoulder, because I had packed for every possible version of a day instead of the one I was going to have.

I did not set out to pay excess baggage on clothes I would never take out of the case. That is the part I want to be clear about. Nobody decides that. It happens quietly, one just-in-case at a time, until somebody is watching you fold an untouched blouse for the third time.

How it happens

When I actually worked out why the case was always full, I understood what I had been doing.

I was not packing clothes. I was packing combinations. A top that needs those trousers, which need those shoes, which do not go with the other top, so that top needs its own trousers as well. Every single piece in there was holding hands with two others, and if one of them stayed home the whole arrangement fell apart.

The shops sell you separates and separates multiply. Nobody seemed to think a woman might want one garment that is a whole outfit on its own, and that is the only thing that ever makes a case smaller.

And once that is all there is, you stop expecting anything else. You lay it all out on the spare bed. You pack for the weather you might get. And you assume that is simply what going away is.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong, and I suspect I am not alone.

I thought my problem was that I over-packed. Every trip I promised to be ruthless, and every trip the case was full, because the things I was taking out were things that something else depended on.

It turns out it was never about being ruthless.

It is about whether anything in the case can stand on its own. A dress is a whole outfit in one garment. If it is light, it folds into almost nothing. If it does not crush, it comes out of the case ready. And if it goes from a morning walk to dinner with nothing more than a change of shoes, then one of them has just replaced about four of something else.

It took me until 70, and ninety dollars at a check-in desk, to work that out.

The dress is called the Gabrielle

It is from Perth Boutique, a small Australian boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. Bev found them, which she reminds me of regularly.

The dress is called the Gabrielle. A flowing midi in a soft, light fabric, with a round neck, small cap sleeves and a seam gathered under the bust. Mine is the light grey. There are eleven colours, and the relevant thing about it for a case is that it weighs next to nothing and folds down to about the size of a jumper.

The weight is the part that matters. It is light enough that two of them cost you less than one pair of shoes, and because the skirt is gathered rather than pressed into a shape, it comes out of a case looking like itself rather than like a map. It goes on over the head, so there is nothing to iron and nothing to fasten in a dim hotel room. And because it is a whole outfit, it does not need anything else in the case to hold its hand.

That is really all there is to it. It is not complicated. It is one garment that is a day.

What happened in Italy

The first proper outing was ten days in Italy, in August, which is the most honest test I could have given it.

Three women asked me about it before the first week was out. The one at the next table in Lucca started it, because she asked in English and then again in Italian in case I had not understood.

The third was Bev, who had watched me pay the excess baggage in Perth and who has the grace of a saint, and who said only that my case looked lighter. I have decided to take that as a compliment.

What I noticed more than the questions, though, was the mornings. I did not lay anything out the night before. I did not stand in front of an open case deciding. I took one thing off the back of the door and went down to breakfast, which I had not realised had been the slowest half hour of every holiday of my life until it was not.

And on the last night I repacked in about four minutes, and the case shut without me sitting on it. Completely myself.

Three things I have learned since

One. I was never over-packing. I was packing combinations. Every item in that case needed two others. Take one out and three things stop working. That is why being ruthless never once helped.

Two. A dress is a whole outfit, and that is the only maths that matters. Two of these replaced eight separate things and about four decisions a day. The case was four kilos lighter without my having to be brave about it.

Three. It comes out of the case ready. No ironing board, no hanging it in a steamy bathroom. The gathering means a few creases simply do not show.

About the price

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

The Gabrielle is $57.95. It was $114.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because I paid more than that in excess baggage for the privilege of not wearing eighteen other things.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no middleman taking a cut, and they have their end of season sale on at the moment, with free shipping Australia wide.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and had a proper look before I ordered. Eleven colours, which is more than I have ever been offered in my life, and the sizes run from an AU 8 right up to an AU 24, all at the same price, which I notice, because for most of my life it has not been.

Then I ordered the white one as well for the next trip, and Bev has already said she is coming.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat in the kitchen with the teapot between us and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you have ever paid for an overweight case and come home having worn a quarter of it, and told yourself the answer was to be more disciplined next time, then it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look.

Not because a dress will change your life. It will not. But there is something in shutting a case without sitting on it 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 the free shipping goes with it. And it is the light grey and the white that go first, which I found out because Bev had to wait a week for hers.

I have not paid excess baggage since.

Maggie