A letter about the clothes we actually live in

At 68, I had a wardrobe full of dresses that looked lovely standing still. None of them worked on an ordinary Tuesday.

Every second Tuesday, I help with a little garden group not far from home. There are eight of us, sometimes nine, and we spend more time talking over tea than doing anything particularly useful with the plants.

But I love it.

There's usually a table of cuttings, somebody brings biscuits, and somebody else arrives with a story about what their grandchildren have done that week.

We've been meeting for years.

And for the last three of them, I've worn practically the same outfit every time.

Navy trousers. A loose top. Flat sandals.

Nothing wrong with any of it. I have always liked navy.

But one Tuesday, my friend Rosemary asked why I never wore dresses anymore.

I told her they weren't practical for the sort of things we did.

She looked around the room. We were arranging flowers and drinking tea, not digging trenches.

“Maggie,” she said, “when did wearing a dress become such hard work?”

It was a fair question.

I hadn't stopped liking dresses.

I'd stopped liking the little inconveniences that seemed to come with wearing them.

I didn't need a dress that looked beautiful on a hanger. I needed one that still made sense after I'd sat down, bent over, carried something and spent four hours getting on with my day.

That seems obvious now.

But at 68, I had an entire wardrobe of clothes I'd bought for how they looked standing in front of the mirror.

Not for what it actually felt like to live in them.

Perhaps you know the feeling.

You put something on in the morning and think it looks perfectly nice.

Then you sit down.

Or reach for something on a high shelf.

Or spend half an hour in the car.

And suddenly you're remembering why you haven't worn it since Christmas.

How I ended up with a wardrobe full of clothes I didn't wear

I used to buy dresses because I liked them.

A pretty print, a good length, a colour that caught my eye in the shop window.

I'd take one home, hang it in the wardrobe and imagine all the lovely places I'd wear it.

But more often than not, the reality was rather different.

One dress would fit nicely around the shoulders but pull across my middle whenever I sat down.

Another would have a lovely pattern but no pockets, which meant I was forever looking for somewhere to put my glasses or a tissue.

And a third would be so stiff through the waist that I couldn't wait to change out of it after lunch.

None of them was necessarily a bad dress.

They simply weren't right for the way I actually spent my days.

So I wore them once or twice, put them back on their hangers, and returned to my navy trousers.

Eventually, I stopped trying.

It was easier to wear the same practical clothes than to spend another morning being disappointed by something pretty.

And the strange thing is, I convinced myself that was just what happened when you got older.

You became sensible.

You stopped bothering with dresses unless somebody was getting married.

But when Rosemary asked me about it, I realised that wasn't quite true.

I still wanted to wear pretty things.

I just wanted them to work.

What I had wrong about a practical dress

The following weekend, I took nearly every dress out of my wardrobe and laid them across the bed.

My daughter Kate arrived halfway through this performance and asked whether I was moving house.

I told her I was trying to understand why I had so many dresses and wore so few of them.

She picked up one with a stiff waistband, looked at the lining and put it straight back down.

“Mum, you wouldn't wear this around the house for ten minutes,” she said.

She was right.

I'd been choosing dresses as though I only needed to stand in them.

But I don't spend my days standing still.

I sit and have lunch. I carry shopping. I bend down to look at plants. I get in and out of the car. I visit friends and occasionally end up helping in their kitchens.

I wanted a dress that allowed for all of that.

Not a shapeless tent.

Not something so fitted that I spent the afternoon pulling it away from my stomach.

Just a proper everyday dress, with some shape at the top, room through the skirt and enough practical details that I didn't have to think about it every five minutes.

That was when I started looking again.

The blue dress that caught my attention

I'd been browsing Perth Boutique when I came across a dress called the Georgina.

They had a few different floral versions, but I kept going back to the blue.

It's a lovely rich blue with small white floral shapes scattered across the fabric.

Not an enormous print that takes over the whole dress.

Just little white flowers against blue, the kind of pattern that has always looked neat and cheerful to me.

It reminded me of some blue-and-white crockery my mother used to keep in her kitchen.

There's something timeless about that combination.

But the pattern wasn't what made me stop scrolling.

It was the shape.

The Georgina has a rounded neckline, short sleeves and soft gathering that gives the upper part a little definition before the skirt falls away.

There's no tight-looking band across the middle.

The skirt has a gentle A-line shape, and the whole thing looked like it was designed to move rather than be arranged around you.

And then I noticed the pockets.

Two little pockets at the sides.

I actually said, “Oh, thank goodness,” to nobody in particular.

I know pockets don't sound like a reason to buy a dress.

But once you've reached an age where you're forever misplacing your reading glasses, tissues and shopping lists, you begin to appreciate the small practical details.

And I was tired of having to carry a handbag from one room to another simply because my dress had nowhere to put anything.

The first morning I tried it on

When the Georgina arrived, I hung it on the bedroom door and looked at it for a while.

The blue was lovely in the natural light.

It had more character than my usual plain navy but wasn't so bright that I wondered whether I'd actually wear it.

I tried it on with my ordinary flat sandals.

No special shoes. No jewellery apart from the little earrings I wear most days.

The first thing I noticed was that it still looked like a dress.

That might sound like a strange thing to say.

But I'd spent years choosing looser and looser clothes in an attempt to avoid anything touching my middle, and half of them ended up looking like large rectangles.

This had a little shape through the upper part, then the gathered skirt fell more freely.

The short sleeves covered the tops of my arms, and the mid-calf length was something I felt comfortable wearing.

I walked around the bedroom.

Sat on the edge of the bed.

Stood up again.

Then I put my hands in the pockets.

I had to laugh at myself.

Imagine being this pleased about pockets at 68.

But they were exactly the sort of detail I'd been missing.

I didn't put it away for some future birthday lunch.

I decided I was going to wear it to the next garden group meeting.

On a Tuesday.

For no particular occasion.

What happened at the garden group

Tuesday arrived with one of those lovely Perth spring mornings.

There was sunshine through the kitchen window, and the garden was looking unusually tidy because we'd had a little rain the week before.

I put on the blue Georgina, my flat tan sandals and a simple cardigan that I could take off once the day warmed up.

I didn't spend twenty minutes trying to make the outfit look more formal.

I didn't need to.

The print did enough on its own.

Rosemary noticed as soon as I walked into the meeting room.

“Maggie! You've worn a dress.”

I told her she'd been responsible for making me reconsider my wardrobe.

She laughed and said she hoped I hadn't thrown everything away on her account.

We spent the morning arranging cuttings, discussing which plants would survive the summer, and drinking tea out of the mismatched mugs that have been in the cupboard for years.

At one point, I was helping move a few things off a table when I realised I had my reading glasses tucked into one of the dress pockets.

Not lost in the bottom of my handbag.

Not left in the car.

Exactly where I needed them.

It was such a small thing.

But I remember thinking how nice it was to wear something pretty that had been designed with ordinary life in mind.

Rosemary asked where I'd found it.

I told her Perth Boutique.

She wanted to know whether it came in any other colours.

I said it did.

Then she asked the question that always seems to matter more than anything else when women our age are talking about clothes.

“But is it comfortable when you sit down?”

I laughed, because that was exactly what I'd wanted to know before ordering.

We are practical women.

We may admire a pretty pattern, but we're going to spend the afternoon sitting in the thing, so the rest matters too.

The afternoon I forgot I was wearing something new

After the meeting, I stopped to do a little shopping.

There was a birthday card I needed to buy and a few things to pick up for dinner.

Then I decided to have a coffee before going home.

None of it was planned.

And that was what made the day such a useful test.

I wasn't dressing for a particular event.

I was simply wearing the dress while getting on with an ordinary Tuesday.

I didn't feel overdressed at the shops.

I didn't feel underdressed when I stopped for coffee.

And I didn't spend the afternoon wishing I'd worn my usual trousers.

I am not suggesting that the Georgina will fit every woman exactly the way it fits me.

We're all different shapes, and we like different things.

But the features that interested me were the same ones I appreciated during the day: the soft gathering, the room through the skirt, the modest sleeves and those very useful pockets.

When I got home, I hung it up instead of throwing it straight into the washing basket.

I had already decided I wanted to wear it again.

Three things I've learned about everyday dresses

One. Pretty and practical are not opposites. I spent years buying sensible clothes for ordinary days and saving my dresses for occasions. I now look for something that can do both, without making me feel overdressed for a trip to the shops.

Two. The cut matters more than simply buying a larger size. A softly gathered dress with an A-line skirt can provide room through the middle without hanging straight down like a sack. I'd rather choose the shape carefully than automatically go up another size.

Three. Pockets are not a luxury. At this age, I like knowing where I've put my glasses. I like being able to tuck a tissue away without carrying a handbag everywhere. Those little practical details make a dress much easier to live in.

That third one might sound rather unromantic.

But I've worn enough beautiful dresses with nowhere to put anything to know it matters.

Why I chose the blue floral

There were other floral versions of the Georgina that looked very pretty.

But the blue felt most like me.

I've always liked blue with white. I liked it in my mother's kitchen, I liked it in the dresses I wore when I was younger, and I still like it now.

The little white floral pattern gives the dress some character without making it difficult to wear.

It works with tan sandals, white shoes and the light cardigan I carry around during spring.

And I rather like that I can wear it for morning tea or a family lunch without feeling as though I've dressed for the wrong occasion.

It doesn't need fancy jewellery.

It doesn't need heels.

It just needs putting on.

About the price

I want to mention the price because I looked at that carefully before ordering.

The Georgina is currently listed at $49.95 AUD at Perth Boutique, with a displayed comparison price of $166.50.

That's an advertised reduction of seventy per cent.

It's a substantial discount, and I think it's always sensible to check the product details rather than buying something simply because the price has been reduced.

The Georgina is described as having lightweight, slightly stretchy fabric, with a rounded neckline, short sleeves, front pleats, an A-line shape and discreet pockets.

The length is described as mid-calf, and the sizes run from S through 3XL.

I would definitely check the size guide before ordering.

Even when a dress has a little room through the skirt, the shoulders and upper part still need to fit properly.

Perth Boutique also lists free home delivery in Australia.

For me, the appeal wasn't only the price.

It was the possibility of buying one pretty everyday dress that I would actually wear, rather than another one that would spend most of its life hanging in the wardrobe.

That's what I now look for before spending money on clothes.

Not just whether something is lovely.

Whether I'll enjoy wearing it.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of tea between us, and you told me you had a wardrobe full of dresses but wore the same trousers nearly every day, I'd understand completely.

I did exactly that for years.

I'd buy something pretty because it caught my eye.

Then I'd discover that sitting in it was uncomfortable, or that it had nowhere to put anything, or that I felt too dressed up to wear it to the shops.

Back into the wardrobe it went.

And eventually I stopped expecting anything different.

But I don't think getting older means we have to choose between looking nice and getting on with our day.

We can still enjoy pretty patterns.

We can still wear colour.

And we can be practical about the way our clothes fit and move without deciding that practicality is the only thing that matters.

The blue floral Georgina is worth a look if you've been searching for that sort of everyday dress.

Have a look at the shape, check the measurements and see whether the design would suit the way you spend your days.

I can't promise it will become your favourite.

But I like the idea of choosing clothes for the days we're actually living, rather than saving all our prettiest things for some future occasion.

After all, there is nothing wrong with wanting to look lovely on an ordinary Tuesday.

And if somebody asks why you're dressed up, you don't really need a reason.

At 68, I've stopped buying dresses for the woman standing still in the mirror. I'm buying them for the woman who has places to go and a life to enjoy.

Maggie