A Letter From a Reader: The Same Dress, Every Time

I Have Worn The Same Dress To Every Occasion For Four Years, And I Know Exactly How That Looks

A note from a reader about the problem nobody warns you about after sixty — what to wear to the wedding, the christening, the eightieth.

There is a navy dress in my wardrobe that has been to two weddings, a christening, my brother-in-law's eightieth and, I am fairly sure, a funeral.

I am 61. I did not decide that dress would become my uniform. It happened the way these things happen, which is that every time an invitation arrived I stood in front of the wardrobe, looked at the alternatives, and reached for the navy again because it was the only thing I was sure of.

The photographs are what gave it away. My daughter Sarah keeps a folder on her phone of family occasions going back years, and in most of them I am wearing the same dress. She has never said a word about it. She did not have to.

And here is the part I would not have admitted a year ago. It was not that I had nothing else. It was that everything else made me look like I had stopped trying, and the navy dress at least made me look like I had not.

What actually goes wrong after sixty

Nobody warns you that dressing for an occasion gets harder rather than easier. You would think it would settle down by now. It does the opposite.

The dresses that fit properly want you in shapewear, and I am not spending four hours at a wedding held in by something. The ones that do not need shapewear have no sleeves, and I stopped wanting my upper arms in photographs somewhere around fifty-eight. Anything with a zip up the back has to be negotiated, usually by Ray, usually badly.

Then there is the sitting. Whatever you choose, you have to sit in it at a long table for four hours, stand up, and still look like you meant it. Most things do not survive that. You get up creased across the lap with the whole room watching you smooth yourself down.

So you find one thing that works, and you wear it to everything, and you tell yourself nobody notices.

Bev, again

Bev from my walking group is the reason I found the linen top I wrote about earlier this year. She has now done it to me twice.

We were at a birthday lunch in a garden and she came in wearing a matching set, a loose top and wide-leg trousers cut from the same cloth, and she looked finished. Not dressed up. Finished. There is a difference and you know it the moment you see it.

I asked her about it before she had even sat down, which is not like me. She laughed and said I was the third person that afternoon.

What it is

It is called the Nora, from Eleanor & Co Australia.

A crew-neck top with long, softly gathered sleeves, and matching wide-leg trousers on an elasticated waist, both cut from a light linen blend with a faint woven texture running through it. Seven colours. Sizes AU 8 through to AU 20.

There are pockets in the trousers, which I mention because at a certain age you stop pretending you do not care about pockets. No zip. Nothing to strain. You pull the trousers on, and that is the whole procedure.

Hanging on the wardrobe door the morning after it arrived. Both pieces, one hanger, one decision.

The part I was not sure about

I will be straight with you about the cuffs, because they are the first thing you will notice and probably the first thing you will object to.

Each sleeve finishes in a large fabric flower at the wrist. When I first saw it I thought, quite plainly: that is not me. I am not a woman who wears a flower.

I ordered it anyway, in the black, because everything else about it was right, and I told myself I could always keep my hands in my pockets.

What happened is what always happens with one good detail. It was the only thing anybody mentioned. Three people at the wedding asked me about the sleeves, and not one of them asked whether I had a new dress, because it was not a dress at all.

I have thought about why that works, and I think it comes to this. At our age you are not trying to be noticed. You are trying not to be dismissed. One deliberate detail says you chose this. Plain black on its own says you coped.

I did not need a new dress. I needed to stop having the same argument with my wardrobe every time an envelope arrived.

→ Read about the Nora set

The Nora, against what you have been wearing to these things

Let me put it beside the alternatives, because that is really the decision.

• The occasion dress. Wants shapewear. Usually sleeveless, or near enough. Rides up when you sit. And you can only wear it to occasions, so it hangs there eleven months of the year earning nothing.
• Good trousers and a nice top. Comfortable, and it never quite looks finished, because the two halves were not made for each other and everybody can tell, including you.
• The set. Cut from one cloth, so it reads as an outfit rather than an assembly. Arms covered. No zip. Nothing holding you in. And because it is two separate garments, it does not sit in the wardrobe waiting for the next wedding.

That last part is the bit I did not expect to matter, and it is the bit I would now put first.

Laid out the night before. I have not done that in years, because I have not known the night before in years.

What I noticed

1. 1. I sat down in it for four hours. Then I stood up and did not check anything. The trousers do not crease across the lap into a disgrace, and the top does not ride up when you get out of a car.
2. 2. The sleeves cover the whole upper arm. All of it, without gripping anywhere. That is the part I would have paid the money for on its own.
3. 3. No shapewear. The top skims the middle rather than holding it in, which is a completely different feeling and a far better one. You forget about it by the second course.
4. 4. It is two garments. I have already worn the trousers with a white shirt to the shops, and the top with jeans on a Sunday. So it is not one outfit. It is three.

Four hours at that table, and I did not think about what I was wearing once.

Now, about the price

I did what I always do now before I order from somewhere new, which is read the reviews before I read anything else. 4.8 stars across 763 women, most of them our age, and the same words coming up over and over. Comfortable. Covered. Did not have to think about it.

The Nora is $84.95, down from $199.95.

I want to point out the thing that took me a minute to see for myself. It is two pieces. That works out at $42.48 a garment, for trousers and a top that were made to go together, which is normally the part you pay a great deal extra for.

Set that against an occasion dress bought for one wedding and worn once.

And if you take a second one, the twenty percent comes off. It climbs from there.

The other thing that made ordering easy, and I say this as a woman who has been burned buying clothes on the internet: there is a thirty day money-back guarantee. If it arrives and it is not right, you send it back within thirty days and you get a full refund. I did not need it. I would not have ordered without it.

What I'd tell you if we were friends

If you were on my verandah with a pot of tea and you asked me whether to order one, this is what I would say.

I would tell you the black is the one I chose and the one I would choose again, because black is what most of us reach for when it matters, and this is the most comfortable version of it I have owned. The dark blue is the one Sarah says suits me better. The white is braver than I am.

I would tell you to order your usual size. I took mine and the waistband did the rest.

I would also tell you not to sit on it too long. At this price the popular colours thin out quickly, because that is exactly what happened with the linen top I wrote about, and the black and the dark blue are the two everybody seems to want first.

And if you have something in the diary already, order it early enough to try it on with your own shoes, in your own light, well before the day. Nothing is worse than finding out on the morning.

But the honest reason I am writing this down is not that I found a beautiful outfit. It is that the next time an invitation arrives, I already know what I am wearing. I have not had that feeling in four years, and I had forgotten it was even available.

If there is a dress in your wardrobe that has been to everything, you will know exactly what I mean.

While the sizes are still in stock.

— Robyn

This is a personal account from a customer of Eleanor & Co Australia. Robyn was not paid to write it. She did receive the set she ordered.