A letter from a reader

At 63, my husband found me in front of the wardrobe holding two tops up to the mirror. He asked how long I had been standing there.

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 chooses to put on of a morning has never been any of my business.

But three different women have asked me about this outfit in the past fortnight, two of them at the same table at book club, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it all down properly.

It started with Don, on a Wednesday. I was going to my niece's engagement afternoon at three o'clock. At twenty past one he came up to ask if I wanted a sandwich and found me in front of the wardrobe with a top in each hand, holding them up to the mirror in turn. He went away. He came back at two. I was still there, with a different two. He watched for a moment, and then he said it.

You have got a wardrobe full of clothes and nothing to wear, because none of it was ever meant to go with any of the rest.

I laughed, and then I looked at the bed, where I had laid out four tops, two cardigans and three pairs of trousers, and he was right. Not one of those things was wrong. Every one of them had been bought on its own, in a different shop, in a different year, to go with something I no longer own.

I did not set out to build a wardrobe that does not speak to itself. That is the part I want to be clear about. Nobody decides that. It happens quietly, one sensible purchase at a time, until one day your husband is timing you from the doorway.

How it happens

When I actually went looking for something I could put on without a committee meeting, I understood how I had ended up with the wardrobe I had.

The shops sell you one thing at a time. A nice top, on its own. A pair of trousers, on their own, in a shade that is nearly but not quite the shade of the other trousers. Each one looks fine on the hanger, and each one comes home with no family.

That was the whole shopping centre. Nobody seemed to think a woman might want to buy the decision as well as the clothes.

And once that is all there is, you stop expecting anything else. You buy another nice top. You hang it next to the others. And you assume that standing in front of the wardrobe at twenty past one is simply what getting dressed 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 did not have enough. Every time the wardrobe defeated me I bought one more thing, and one more thing made it worse.

It turns out it was never about how much was in there.

It is about whether any of it was made to go together. Three pieces cut for each other, in one colour, by one person, on purpose. The moment that is true you are not choosing any more, you are just getting dressed, and a set you can put on without thinking beats a wardrobe you have to solve every morning of your life.

It took me until 63, and an hour and a half in front of the mirror, to work that out.

The set is called the Henrietta

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

The set is called the Henrietta. Three pieces in caramel: a long open-front cardigan with a black leaf print running through it, a plain long-sleeve top to go underneath, and wide-leg trousers to match. They arrive together, and they are cut for each other, which is the entire point.

The cardigan is the piece that does the talking. It is open at the front and falls straight rather than clinging, so it goes past the middle instead of settling on it, and it covers the arms without being a jacket. The top underneath is plain, so there is nothing competing with it. The trousers are wide-leg and go straight down from the hip. Put the three on and the outfit is finished, and I have not held anything up to a mirror since.

That is really all there is to it. It is not complicated. It is just three things that somebody designed in the same room.

What happened at the engagement afternoon

The first proper outing was the engagement do, which was the whole reason for the standing about in the first place.

Three women asked me about it before the speeches. My sister-in-law started it, which was a bit rich, and then two women I had never met before.

The third was Lorraine, who I have known since the children were small and who has never once commented on anything I wear. She looked at me and asked who had dressed me. I have decided to take that as a compliment.

What I noticed more than the compliments, though, was that I stopped checking. I did not go off twice to see whether the cardigan had ridden up or the top had gone thin in the light. I was there for three hours and never once adjusted anything, which I had not realised I had been doing at every function for years until I stopped.

The next morning I put the top and the trousers straight back on, without the cardigan, to take my granddaughter to swimming. Same two pieces, different outfit, no thinking about it. Completely myself.

Three things I have learned since

One. Buying the decision is worth more than buying the clothes. It is not just the time. It is not arriving somewhere already tired of yourself before the afternoon has started. Small thing. Changes the whole week.

Two. The long open layer was the answer all along. It covers the arms, it skims the middle, and it is not a jacket, so you keep it on indoors and nobody offers to hang it up for you.

Three. It comes apart. The top and the trousers work on their own with things I already own, so it is three pieces but it is not one outfit, and that is where it earns its keep.

About the price

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

The Henrietta is $89.95 for all three pieces. It was $299.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because you can pay that for one pair of trousers in town and walk out with nothing to wear them with.

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 spring and anniversary sale on at the moment, which is seventy per cent off, free shipping Australia wide, and a little more off again if you take two or more.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and had a proper look before I ordered. Twenty sets in the edit, all three pieces, all the same price, and the sizes run from a small to a 4XL without the price moving, which I notice, because for most of my life it has.

Then I ordered the plum one as well, which Don says was inevitable. He is not wrong.

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 a wardrobe full of good things that do not know each other, and you have been quietly losing an hour to it before every occasion, then it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look.

Not because an outfit will change your life. It will not. But there is something in walking out of the bedroom in six minutes, dressed and done, 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 whole edit is in it. And it is the middle sizes that go first, which I found out because my sister-in-law had to wait a week for hers.

I have not held two tops up to the mirror since.

Maggie