A Letter From a Reader

At 55 I Had Something Warm on Every Chair and I Was Still Cold in My Own House

Every chair in my house had something on it.

A folded throw over the arm of the chair I read in. A knitted shawl over the back of a dining chair. A fleece on the kitchen chair that I keep on until somebody rings the doorbell. I did not buy any of it on purpose. Warm things collect in a house where somebody is cold.

And then I get up. For the kettle, for the door, for the laundry, for the mail. Whatever was over my knees stays on the seat, and the cold starts again from the beginning, three or four times an evening.

The warm thing was always in the room I had just left.

I have never written anything like this before and I am not in the habit of telling other women what to wear. I have written here five times and you have written back every time, so I will be honest about the sixth. Four different women asked me the same question at a birthday last month, and I have now answered it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down.

What a dresser could see in nine seconds

This is Helene's doing. She is retired now and lives two streets over from my sister in Victoria. For thirty years she dressed actors at the theatre there, putting clothes on people who had to walk, carry a tray and climb a staircase in them without once thinking about what they had on.

I mentioned the chairs the way you mention something you have decided is a joke about yourself. She did not laugh. She said she could always tell in the wardrobe department which layer a body takes with it and which one it leaves behind, and that it had almost nothing to do with how warm the thing was.

You never find out what a layer is worth while you are sitting down.

The standing up test

Her rule is this. You judge a warm layer at the moment you stand up, not while you sit in it. Anything you have to hold shut, pinch closed or drape again over your shoulders gets left behind, because your hands are needed for something else within four seconds of standing.

A layer comes with you only if your body carries it and your hands stay free.

See The Cardigan I Am Talking About

What I ended up with

I ran her test on everything I owned, which took one evening and was not enjoyable. The throw failed immediately. The shawl failed the moment I picked up a full laundry basket. Helene sent me a link two days later with no message, which is very her.

It is a cardigan, and I want to be careful, because I have owned a lot of soft things that promised to fix this and then stayed on a chair like everything else. This one has one zip that runs from the hem to the top of the collar, so I can wear it open over a blouse or close it all the way to my throat, and either way it needs no hand to keep it shut.

Then the pockets. Two roomy patch pockets sit exactly where my hands fall, and they take a phone and my keys. That is the whole reason it comes with me. Not because it is warmer than the throw, because it is not. Because my hands are free and I am still wearing it by the time I reach the door.

It is a relaxed shape that sits at the hip, in a ribbed knit with a ribbed collar, ribbed cuffs and ribbed pockets, in sizes S to 3XL. Mine is the grey. I have looked at the green twice since.

What happened at Monique's birthday

Monique turned 60 last month and we ate in her garden until it got cold, which in Montreal is about ten past eight. I got up four times. For plates, for the door, for more wine, for a child who fell off the step. Each time I stood up still wearing the thing I had been warm in, which has not been true of me for years.

Four women asked me where it was from. Four. One of them was Louise, who I have known since our children were at elementary school and who has never once commented on anything I have worn. She said I looked like I had come from something rather than come down from a nap. I have decided to take that as a compliment.

Three things I have learned since

One. The pockets are not for carrying things. They are the reason my hands are not holding the cardigan, which is the reason the cardigan is still on me two rooms later.

Two. The zip matters more than the wool. Open over a blouse in the afternoon, closed at the throat on the back steps at ten, and I have not once had to gather anything at the front.

Three. I have stopped leaving a trail behind me. There is now one chair in this house with nothing on it, and I am the reason for that.

What it is not

It is a knit, not a coat. It will not keep rain out and it will do nothing at all for you in January. The zip is metal, so on a cold evening the top of it is unfriendly against your chin for the first few seconds. If what you want is outerwear, this is not it, and I would rather tell you that now than have you find out in a parking lot.

About the price

The price made me suspicious rather than pleased, which is usually a sign I should slow down. It is $69.95, down from $174.95. I wanted to know why before I believed it, so I asked. It is a small Canadian shop that sells direct, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and this run is being cleared out before the season turns. Real people, mixed opinions, mostly very good. There is no catch that I have found.

See The Colours And Sizes

What I would tell you if we were sitting here

Do not buy this because you are cold. Buy it if you keep leaving the warm thing behind you. Stand up in your own living room tonight, walk to the kettle, and look at what stayed on the chair. That is the whole test, and it tells you more than any label will.

Not because a cardigan changes anything. It does not. But there is something in getting up to answer your own front door without bracing for it that I had quietly given up on, and I would rather you did not give up on it too.

The sale is on at the moment and the middle sizes are the ones that go first, and once this run has sold through that is it until next year.

Claire

About the writer. Claire Beaulieu is 55 and lives in Outremont, Montreal, where she works as an independent interior design consultant. She has two grown children, walks the mountain on Sunday mornings, cooks for a great many more people than her kitchen was built for, and listens to a considerable amount of jazz. She writes here about what she is actually wearing, which is not something she expected to be doing at this stage of her life.

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