I Have Worn The Same Dress Six Times In A Fortnight. My Daughter Rang To Ask If I Was Alright.

A note from a reader about the small Devon boutique dress that has, by her own count, quietly replaced almost everything else in her wardrobe.

I am 61 years old, and three weeks ago I bought a single dress that has, since then, been on my body six different times.

I will give you the count, because my daughter Emma did not believe me when I told her on the phone.

Once to the farmers market on a Saturday. Once to a doctor's appointment I had been dreading on a Tuesday. Once in the garden on a hot Wednesday, kneeling in the soil around the tomato plants. Once to a long lunch with my sister at a restaurant where I almost wore something dressier and then looked at it and thought, no. Once to my granddaughter Lily's swimming lesson, in the soft folding chair beside the pool. And once, on the most ordinary day, just around the house, because I had reached for it again without thinking about it.

The dress is called the Kwani. It comes from a small coastal boutique called Torquay Boutique that I had never heard of until a friend of mine mentioned them. I want to tell you what it is, because I think if you are a woman my age you have been quietly looking for it for a long time.

What it is

It is a cotton midi dress. Knee length. A line. Soft round neckline. Short sleeves cut to the right place on the upper arm, which is the place I have spent the last six years adjusting other people's sleeves to reach. It has a quietly flattering shape that skims without clinging, the way the better summer dresses used to before the entire collection on the high street became something either too tight or shaped like a hospital gown.

And it has pockets.

I want to spend a moment on the pockets, because I think a lot of women my age know exactly what I mean.

I have spent the last twenty years carrying a small bag with me from room to room of my own house. House keys, lip balm, my phone, a tissue, the dog treats for our little rescue terrier Poppy. I have set that bag down on counters, in friends' kitchens, in restaurant booths, in church pews, and at the side of the pool at Lily's swimming lesson, and I have forgotten it in at least four of those places.

Pockets, in a summer dress, are not a small thing. Pockets mean I can walk into my kitchen with the laundry basket in one hand and a glass of water in the other and the phone is in the dress. Pockets mean I can walk Poppy to the corner without bringing a bag. Pockets mean I can hold Lily's small hand and her library book at the same time without anything sliding off my shoulder.

What I have been carrying in there all week.

A pocket, at 61, is a love language.

Emma rang me

After the fourth wearing my daughter Emma, who is thirty four and lives in London, rang me and said, "Mum. Are you alright?"

I told her I was completely fine.

She said, "the only reason I am asking is that you have, over the last fortnight, been wearing the same dress in every photograph I have seen of you. Are you sure you are alright?"

I told her I was wearing the same dress because I had not bothered to take off the dress.

She thought about that for a long second. Then she asked me where it had come from. I told her. She ordered her own the next morning. She ordered hers in the black.

"I will be honest, Mum," she said. "I have not seen you this comfortable in a dress in maybe ten years."

→ Read about the Kwani

What changed in three weeks

I had not been looking for a uniform.

I had been quietly accumulating, over the last five years, an unspoken sort of dread about getting dressed in the morning. Not a deep one, not a complicated one, just the sense that the act of putting on a dress had stopped feeling like a small daily pleasure and started feeling like a chore. I had drawers and drawers of summer pieces I had bought hopefully, that I would put on, and then I would catch sight of myself in the bedroom mirror, and I would put on something else. Usually a tunic over leggings, the laziest possible compromise.

The Kwani changed the order of that.

Three things I noticed in the first week, and I have written them down because I knew I would want to remember.

1. It does not cling. The cotton is light enough to breathe on a warm day and substantial enough to hang the way a real summer dress is supposed to.

2. It does not tent. I have bought what I thought were comfortable summer dresses before that turned out to be enormous tents I could have fit two of me inside. The Kwani has the soft a line cut that is the only thing that has ever flattered a real 61 year old body.

3. It does not announce itself. There is no slogan, no contrast trim, no bright print. It is one solid colour in a quiet shape, and it does not make me feel like I am wearing a piece of clothing. It makes me feel like I am dressed.

What I would tell you if we were friends

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

I would tell you that women our age have been quietly told by the entire fashion industry that the choice is either a tent or something built for someone half our age. The Kwani is the small, sensible, joyful middle, and it has been a surprisingly long time since I have found one.

I would tell you that the beige is the one I wear the most, the green is the one my sister told me looks best on me, and the orange is the one I bought because I had not bought a colourful dress for myself since 2017. I would tell you to buy two. If you buy two, the stack discount comes off, and if you do what I did, you will end up wearing one of them every other day anyway.

I would tell you that the popular colours are already showing as almost sold out. Black and green were both flagged when I checked again this morning. The anniversary sale ends when the sizes do.

If you have, for longer than you would like to admit, been quietly missing the feeling of opening a wardrobe in the morning and reaching for something with relief instead of resignation, please do not wait.

While the sizes are still in stock.

— Susan