At 49, I Stopped Owning Dresses That Only Fit Me On A Good Day.

A note from a reader about the dresses from a small Australian boutique that tie instead of zip, and therefore fit on the days the others do not.

There is a dress in my wardrobe that fits me about nine days a month. I have known this for two years and I have kept it anyway, because on those nine days it is the best thing I own.

You know the arithmetic. There is the week before, when nothing with a fixed waist is happening. There is the day after a long lunch. There is the fortnight in summer when everything feels closer than it did. And there is whatever your body has quietly decided to do over the last two years without consulting you.

So you buy for the good day and then spend the other twenty-one working around it. Or you buy a size up so it always fits, and it never actually fits, it just hangs there being too big in all the places that were never the problem.

Three weeks ago I worked out that I had been solving the wrong thing. I did not need a dress in a different size. I needed one that did not have a size in the first place.

What it is

The one I ordered is a wrap dress, in a rust and black print with a bit of copper running through it.

A wrap has no zip and no fixed waistband. The two front panels cross over each other and tie, so the waist is wherever you put it on the morning you put it on. That sounds like a small mechanical detail and it is the entire reason I am writing this down.

On a flat day you pull it a little closer. On a day when you would rather it did not touch you, you let it sit easier. Same dress. No decision about whether today is a day you are allowed to wear it.

The front falls in a soft cascade rather than hanging straight, so the fabric drapes over the middle instead of resting against it. The crossover makes a long V at the neck, which does the lengthening that I used to think only a heel could do. And the skirt moves as you walk, which is the difference between a dress that is on you and a dress you are wearing.

The print does the rest. Rust, black and copper are warm, deep colours rather than bright ones, so it reads as considered without asking for attention.

The rust one. It ties, which is the whole reason it works.

Every other dress I own fits me at one size on one kind of day. This one fits me on a Tuesday in February and it fits me the week before my period, and those used to be two different wardrobes.

What happened the first week

I wore it three times in the first week, which has not happened with anything I have bought in years.

A lunch, where I tied it properly and ate a full meal and did not once sit forward. A Saturday with nothing on, where I wore it loose over sandals because it was too hot to think about trousers. And then out in the evening, same dress, tied closer, with better shoes.

Three outfits. One hanger. My sister asked whether I had bought three of them.

“You have worn that three times this week,” she said. I had, and nobody had noticed, because it had looked different every time.

→ See the dress collection

What changed

I was not after a new look. I wanted to stop auditioning my own wardrobe at half past seven in the morning. Three things I noticed, and I wrote them down because I knew I would want to remember.

1. A tie is an adjustment, not a compromise. Elastic gives up and looks like it. A drawstring sits where it is put. A wrap you actively tie, which means you set the shape every single morning rather than accepting one somebody chose for you months ago in a factory.

2. Draped fabric skims where flat fabric clings. The cascade down the front means the fabric is falling past the middle under its own weight rather than lying against it. That is a construction decision, not a size, and no amount of going down a size achieves it.

3. One dress, worn three ways. Tied closer with heels it is an evening dress. Tied loose with flat sandals it is a Saturday. That is not a styling tip, it is just what a wrap does, and it is why it has not been back on the hanger for long.

There are nineteen in the collection and they are not all wraps — there are maxis, midis, a jumpsuit, a couple of two-piece sets, florals and plain blacks. Most of them are built around the same idea, which is that the dress should do the adjusting rather than you.

Now, about the price

I want to talk about the price, because eighty-nine ninety-nine for a dress at this end of the wardrobe did not sound right. So I sat down and worked out what the good-day-only approach has actually cost me.

• The zip dress that fits about nine days a month, $190
• The one I bought a size up so it would always fit, and which therefore never fit, $160
• Two sets of shapewear, bought to make the first one work, $90
• A dress from this collection, $89.99

And underneath, in slightly larger letters, the only thing I could think to write. …nine days??

They are a small boutique selling directly, which is most of the answer, and the rest is that it is on sale. Most of the collection is $89.99 instead of $224.00, and the discount stacks if you take more than one.

What I’d tell you if we were friends

If you were in my kitchen with a cup of tea and you asked me whether you should order one, this is what I would say.

I would tell you to stop shopping for the version of you that turns up nine days a month. Buy for the ordinary Wednesday. A dress that ties will meet you wherever you are that morning, and you will reach for it precisely because it asks you no questions first.

I would tell you that if you have been going a size up to be safe, that is the thing that has been making everything look shapeless. A wrap solves it the other way round — right size, adjustable waist.

I would tell you to order two. Not because I want you spending money, but because the discount stacks — two is ten per cent off, three is fifteen, four is twenty — and because one in a print and one in a plain will cover almost everything you have on in the next three months.

And I would tell you that delivery is free anywhere in Australia and there are thirty days to send it back, so you can tie it both ways in your own bedroom and decide there, which is the only fitting that has ever told me the truth anyway.

If there is something in your wardrobe you love and can only wear on a good day, it was never a willpower problem. It was a zip.

I have worn mine eleven times in three weeks. None of them were good days particularly. That is rather the point.

— Maggie