A letter from a reader

At 67, I have given away four jackets that were perfectly good, and not one of them was worn out.

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 is in another woman’s charity shop bag has never been any of my business.

But three women asked me about this at a graduation in the one afternoon, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

It started with my sister Jean, who was helping me carry a bag out to the car and stopped to look inside it.

There is nothing wrong with any of these, Nancy. They are not worn out. They are just from a particular year.

From a particular year. I stood in the drive holding the bag and had to admit she had described twenty years of my shopping in nine words.

Nobody buys a jacket expecting to give it away in good condition. You buy the one that looks current, and current is exactly the thing that expires.

How it happens

I should say first that I am not a woman who reaches for a jacket most days. I gave that up some time ago and have not missed it.

But there are perhaps five or six afternoons a year — a graduation, a funeral, a lunch where somebody is being thanked for thirty years of something — where you have to look assembled, and you have about four minutes to do it in. For those, you need one jacket that works.

And here is what I had been getting wrong about which one. I had been buying the jacket that looked right in the shop, which always meant the jacket with something going on: a wider lapel one year, a shorter shoulder the next, a trim, a contrast button, a flap on the pocket.

That detail is the thing that dates. Not the fabric, not the cut, not the colour. The detail. Four good jackets went into a bag because each of them was wearing the opinion of the year it was bought in.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I had wrong, and it is almost annoying how simple it is.

I thought timeless was a compliment. A nice word a shop puts on a label.

Timeless is not a compliment. It is a description of what has been left off.

A jacket with no statement detail has nothing on it to go out of date, because there is nothing on it that belonged to a particular season in the first place. The cut does the work, the fabric does the work, and nothing is applied on top making a claim about the year.

Which also means it does not argue with anything. A jacket with a strong lapel or a decorative button has to be matched. A plain one goes over the navy dress, the black trousers and the cream knit without you having to think about any of them.

The jacket is called the Vera

It is from Mavira London, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. Jean found them, which she has not let me forget.

It is a plain tailored jacket, cut clean, with no applied trim, no contrast stitching and no hardware. It is the sort of thing you would struggle to date from a photograph, which is exactly the point.

The absence is the feature. Every piece of decoration on a garment is somebody’s opinion about what looks modern, and opinions expire. A clean front has no opinion in it.

The second thing is the arithmetic. I had been working out cost per wearing, which is the wrong sum for something you wear six times a year. The right sum is cost per year, and a jacket that lasts eight years at six afternoons a year has done better work than a smart one that lasted two.

And because it is plain, it will still be the jacket I reach for when the occasion is somebody else’s and the four minutes are all I have. That is the only thing I want from a jacket now.

What happened at the graduation

The first proper outing was my grandson’s graduation, which is photographs, a draughty hall, and standing about outside afterwards.

Three women asked about it. The second one asked whether it was new, which is a more interesting question than it sounds, because what she meant was that she could not tell.

The third was Margaret. Fifteen years I have known Margaret and she has never once commented on anything I have worn. She asked whether I had had it a while. I said three weeks, and she said she would not have guessed, and I have decided that is the highest praise a jacket can be given.

What I noticed was that it did not need anything. No brooch, no scarf arranged at the neck, no second look in the hall mirror.

And it went on over a navy dress that afternoon and over black trousers and a cream knit at a lunch four days later, and neither time did I stand there working out whether the two things got on.

Three things I have learned since

One. Details date. Garments do not. A lapel width, a contrast button, a flap on a pocket — those belong to the year they were sold in. The fabric and the cut do not. Four perfectly good jackets went into a bag because of their details.

Two. Plain means it does not argue. A jacket with a strong detail has to be matched to everything else. A clean one goes over the navy dress, the black trousers and the cream knit without a conversation.

Three. For six afternoons a year, work out cost per year. Cost per wearing is the wrong sum for something occasional. A plain jacket that is still right in eight years has done better work than a fashionable one that lasted two.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because the price is what made me look twice.

It is £56.95, down from £149.00. I will be honest and say I do not know where the hundred and forty-nine comes from and I did not dwell on it. What I can tell you is what left my account, which was fifty-six pounds and ninety-five pence, and that is less than I paid for at least two of the four jackets now in a charity shop.

There is no catch I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a slice in the middle, and there is a sale on at the moment with free tracked delivery across the UK.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and read the listing properly before I ordered. Check the sizes and the colours on the page, and think about what you will wear it over, because a jacket that has to go over a knit needs the room for it.

There is a thirty day returns policy, which is the only reason I was willing to order a tailored thing I had not put on.

What I would tell you if we were friends

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

Go and look at the jackets you no longer wear and ask yourself, honestly, what is wrong with each one. Not worn out. Wrong.

Mine were all the same answer. A lapel, a button, a shoulder. Each of them was wearing the year it came from.

I am not going to pretend a jacket changes anything. It does not. But having one thing in the wardrobe that will still be right for the five or six afternoons a year I need to look assembled, for as long as it lasts, is a quiet relief, and I would rather you had it too.

Two practical things. The sale is on at the moment with the free tracked delivery. And think about what goes underneath before you choose a size.

Margaret asked whether I had had it a while. I said three weeks. She said she would not have guessed.

Nancy