An illustrated letter from behind the op shop counter

AT 68, I'VE SPENT SIX YEARS SORTING DONATIONS IN THE SAME BLACK TROUSERS. THE WOMAN AT THE NEXT TABLE SAID, "NOBODY SAID DARK HAD TO MEAN DREARY."

Every Thursday morning for six years, I've volunteered at our local op shop. It's a small place on the corner near the train station, run by the church, with a bell over the door that rings every time somebody comes in and a back room that smells permanently of mothballs and other people's attics.

I love it. I love the regulars, the treasures, the strange things people donate. Last month somebody gave us a perfectly good accordion and a box of 1970s cookbooks with notes in the margins.

We have one rule about clothing for volunteers: dark colours, please, because sorting donations is dusty work. So every Thursday for six years, I've worn the same outfit. Black trousers, black polo shirt, black cardigan if it's cold. Sensible black shoes. A pen tucked behind my ear because there's nowhere else to put it.

I never gave it a second thought. It was my uniform. Practical. Done.

Then, two Thursdays ago, a new volunteer started. Her name is Dot. She's seventy-nine, a retired dressmaker, about five foot nothing, and she arrived in a deep navy linen dress with a little brooch at the collar, a navy scarf in her hair, and her reading glasses on a beaded chain.

She looked marvellous. She also, I couldn't help noticing, followed the dark-colours rule perfectly.

We worked side by side that morning, pricing a mountain of donated handbags. Around eleven, she looked across the table at me, at my black polo and my black trousers, and tilted her head.

"Maggie," she said, "can I tell you something, as a dressmaker?"

"Of course."

"Nobody said dark had to mean dreary, love."

Then she went back to pricing handbags, as if she'd remarked on the weather. I spent the rest of the morning wondering how long I'd been dreary without noticing.

THE UNIFORM I'D STOPPED SEEING

That evening I laid my Thursday clothes out on the bed and looked at them the way Dot might have.

The trousers had gone slightly shiny at the knees from six years of kneeling to sort bags on the floor. The polo had faded from black to a sort of tired charcoal, with a stubborn white mark on the hem from a box of chalk-paint someone donated in 2023. The cardigan had a hole in one elbow that I'd darned twice.

None of it was wrong, exactly. But there was something sad about it. A woman who spends every Thursday surrounded by lovely clothes, carefully pricing them so other women can look nice, while she wears the same faded outfit every single week.

The irony wasn't lost on me. I'd just priced a beautiful silk blouse at eight dollars for a young woman going to a job interview. I'd spent ten minutes helping her choose a scarf. And I hadn't chosen anything nice for myself in years.

WHAT THURSDAYS ACTUALLY ASK OF ME

The trouble was, I couldn't just put on a pretty dress and turn up. Op shop work is proper work, and anything I wore had to cope with it.

It had to be dark, of course, because of the rule. And because the back room is dusty, and some of the donations come straight from garages.

It had to be cool. Late October in Perth is properly spring now, and our little shop has a ceiling fan that wobbles alarmingly and does very little else. By midday in summer it can feel like a greenhouse.

It had to let me move. I kneel, I crouch, I reach up to the top shelf for the china, I carry boxes of books from the back door to the sorting table. Nothing tight, nothing short.

And this one I'd never said aloud, but I needed pockets. I'm forever looking for my pen, my price-tag gun, my phone and the key to the back storeroom. The pen behind my ear had become a running joke with the regulars.

I'd always assumed only trousers could do all of that. That a dress was for church, or lunch, or weddings. Not for real work.

WHAT DOT KNEW THAT I DIDN'T

The next Thursday, I asked Dot about her navy dress, because I had to know.

"Oh, it's nothing fancy," she said. "Cotton, short sleeves, pockets. It's what I wore in the workroom for forty years. You can kneel in it, you can sweat in it, you can throw it in the machine at night. And you still look like a woman, not a removalist."

She showed me her pockets. A tape measure in one, a little pincushion in the other. Old habits.

That was the insight I'd missed all those years. A practical dress isn't the opposite of a working outfit. Done properly, a simple cotton dress with deep pockets can be the best working outfit there is. It's cooler than trousers, easier to move in than you'd think, and far nicer to look at in the mirror.

FINDING THE KWANI IN BLACK

I'd ordered from Perth Boutique before, so that weekend I sat down and looked through their dresses with Dot's description in my head. Cotton. Short sleeves. Pockets. Dark.

I found the Kwani Easy Casual Flow Dress almost straight away. It's a relaxed midi dress with a round neckline, short sleeves and two big deep pockets on the front of the skirt. In the photographs, the skirt is gathered into soft folds at the front, which gives it a gentle, rounded shape rather than a straight, plain line.

The listing describes it as 100% cotton, soft and breathable, with an A-line fit that skims the body without clinging. It also says the pockets are deep enough for a phone, keys and lip balm. I thought of my pen, my price-tag gun and the storeroom key, and decided they'd probably fit too.

It comes in black, orange, green and beige. The orange was very tempting, but the dark-colours rule is the dark-colours rule. I chose the black, determined to prove Dot right.

THE BOX ON MY BED

It arrived on the Tuesday. I opened the box in the bedroom and laid the dress out on the bed to have a proper look.

The black was a deep, proper black, not the tired charcoal my old polo had faded to. Against the white quilt, the shape of the dress was really clear: the round neck, the short sleeves, and the skirt gathering into soft folds on either side of the two big pockets.

The cotton felt soft and easy in my hands, not stiff or shiny. It felt like something that would get softer the more I washed it, which, given op shop dust, would be often.

Naturally, I tested the pockets straight away. I fetched my pen, my old price-tag gun from the kitchen drawer, and my phone. All three went in, two in one pocket and one in the other, with room to spare. The price-tag gun sat right down at the bottom, out of sight.

I may have done a small victory dance. Nobody saw. That's the joy of living alone.

HOW IT ACTUALLY FIT

I'll be honest with you, as I always try to be. I'm sixty-eight, my figure has softened in all the usual places, and I'm far more interested in comfort than in impressing anyone.

There's no size chart on the listing, so I ordered my usual size. If you're unsure, I'd recommend asking the shop before ordering. In my usual size, it fit comfortably.

The shape is relaxed. It doesn't grip anywhere, which is exactly what you want when you're kneeling on the floor sorting through a bin bag of jumpers. The round neckline is easy and comfortable, and the short sleeves sit over the tops of the arms without fuss.

The gathered skirt gives it room. I could kneel, crouch and reach up to the top shelf without anything pulling or riding up. On length, it's a midi. On my five-foot-five frame it came to mid-calf, which kept me decent when I knelt on the floor and well clear of my feet on the step-ladder.

And the black, I noticed in the mirror, did something my old uniform never had. It looked deliberate. Simple, but chosen. Dot was right, as dressmakers usually are.

THURSDAY AT THE SHOP

On Thursday morning I hung the dress on my bedroom door while I had breakfast, then put it on with my comfortable black sandals and a pair of small silver earrings I hadn't worn in months.

Right pocket: pen, phone. Left pocket: price-tag gun, storeroom key, a mint for emergencies. For the first time in six years, there was no pen behind my ear.

Dot was already there when I arrived, sorting a box of tea towels. She looked up, looked me up and down slowly, and nodded once, the way a judge might at a cake competition.

"Now that," she said, "is dark without being dreary."

It was a warm morning, and the ceiling fan was doing its usual wobbly nothing. But the cotton stayed cool, and I didn't spend the morning fanning myself with a donated church newsletter, as I usually do by eleven.

I knelt on the floor and sorted three bags of children's clothes. I climbed the step-ladder and rearranged the china shelf. I carried four boxes of paperbacks in from the back door. The dress coped with all of it.

And then something happened that I didn't expect.

Mrs Patel, one of our regulars, who comes in every Thursday to look at the books, stopped at the counter while I was ringing up her paperbacks. "You look different today, Maggie," she said. "Very smart. Is that a new dress?"

Then a young woman buying a lamp asked whether we'd had it donated, because she'd like one like it. I had to explain that, no, this one was mine, and from a shop.

For six years I'd helped other women find something lovely to wear. That Thursday, I finally found something for myself.

At lunchtime, Dot and I walked down to the café on the corner for a sandwich. Usually I'd have taken my cardigan off and tried not to look as though I'd just come from shifting boxes. That day, I just walked in as I was.

THREE THINGS I LEARNED

A uniform can quietly become a rut. I'd told myself my Thursday clothes were practical, and they were. But practical had slowly turned into tired, and I hadn't noticed it happening. It took a seventy-nine-year-old dressmaker to point it out.

Working clothes don't have to be trousers. I'd always assumed a dress was too delicate for real work. A simple cotton dress with deep pockets turned out to be cooler, easier to move in and far more pleasant to wear than my old outfit.

Black can be chosen rather than defaulted to. There's a difference between wearing black because you've stopped thinking about it and wearing black because you've decided it suits you. People can see the difference, and so can you.

ABOUT THE PRICE, PLAINLY

As you might imagine, after six years in an op shop, I have very firm views on what clothes ought to cost. So here is exactly what I know.

When I'm writing this, the Kwani is listed on Perth Boutique at $69.99 AUD, the same in every colour and size. The listing shows a regular price of $179.00. I can't speak for that higher figure, only for what I paid, which seemed fair for something I now wear every Thursday and often on Saturdays as well.

It comes in sizes S through to 5XL, in black, orange, green and beige. There's no size chart on the listing, so if you're between sizes, ask the shop first. Delivery was free, sent with Australia Post, and the shop lists a money-back guarantee. As always, I'd read their Returns & Refunds page before you order, so you know where you stand.

Dot, incidentally, has already asked me for the link. She's eyeing the green.

WHAT I WOULD TELL YOU IF WE WERE FRIENDS

If we were sitting together in the back room of the op shop, sorting through somebody's lovely old scarves, I'd tell you this.

Most of us spend years looking after other people. We make sure the grandchildren have nice school shoes, that our friends feel welcome, that the young woman going to her job interview leaves with a silk blouse and a bit more confidence. And somewhere in all of that, we stop looking after ourselves in the small ways.

It doesn't take much to change it. Not a whole new wardrobe. Just one thing that's practical enough for your real life and nice enough that you feel like yourself when you catch sight of it in a shop window.

You're allowed to look lovely while you work. Dot taught me that, at seventy-nine, with a pincushion in her pocket.

Dark doesn't have to mean dreary, and practical doesn't have to mean forgotten.

With love from Perth,
Maggie