Every coat in my wardrobe was bought to be sensible. This is a letter about the cardigan I actually wear.
Every coat in my wardrobe was bought to be sensible. This is a letter about the cardigan I actually wear.
Six things this plush-lined hooded cardigan gets right that twenty years of dreary winter layers never did, from a woman who refuses to sit in her own house in a big coat.
I am 65, I keep a tidy house in Chester with my husband David, and I want to start with an admission. My wardrobe is full of clothes I bought to be sensible. Heavy winter coats that weigh a tonne on the shoulders, and thin beige or navy cardigans that do nothing whatsoever when a draught comes under the door. Every October, the choice is the same: turn the central heating up and wince at the meter, or sit in the sitting room wrapped in three joyless layers. So this is not a fashion review. It is a woman who finally found one warm, cheerful thing she wears every single day, saying why.
The cardigan I am writing about is from Lyra London, a boutique that has been quietly making ordinary things a bit lovelier for a while now. I first saw it over the back of a chair at my friend Vera's house, looking as bright and considered as a painting, and when the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Here is what forty years of buying winter clothes taught me. Cardigans offered to a woman over fifty come in two piles. The first is the invisible pile: oatmeal, mushroom, charcoal, shapeless and sold as “forgiving”, as though the body inside it had done something wrong. The second is the heavy coat you wrestle into to pop out to the bins or the shops, and strip off the second you get in the car because you cannot move your arms.
The sensible beige ones live at the back of the wardrobe. This one never makes it past the bedroom door hook because I reach for it every morning.
This is the first cardigan I have owned that warms like a proper coat, feels like a favourite jumper, and actually looks worth being seen in. Having worn it for a month, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
1The plush lining traps heat the second you put it on
A hood on a cardigan is usually thin decoration, useless the moment the wind gets up. Here, the entire inside—body and hood alike—is lined with thick, deep plush fleece. It sits properly round the back of the neck, which is where the cold actually finds you, and warms you up in seconds without weighing your shoulders down.
“The fleece inside is glorious. I have stopped putting the heating on during the day just to take the chill off the sitting room.”
2Rich, textured artwork instead of dreary grey
Nobody is asking to be the loudest thing in the room, but most women I know are thoroughly tired of beige. The outer knit has a lovely, tactile texture and proper depth of colour that photographs cannot quite do justice to. Every time I wear mine to the garden centre or Marks & Spencer, another woman asks where I found it.
“Two ladies stopped me in the queue at the chemist to ask about it. It cheers you up just putting it on.”
3It skims past the hips and lets your arms move
The cut is long enough to cover your hips and bottom—so it never rides up and lets a draught in at the waist—and relaxed enough that it drapes in a long, flattering line instead of clinging at the middle. Better still, you can actually drive in it without feeling trussed up like a Christmas turkey.
“Covers the bottom, doesn't cling round the middle, and I can drive in it comfortably. My big winter coat has stayed on the peg.”
4It goes over everything you already own
Most statement pieces demand a whole new outfit built around them. This one asks for nothing. Put it on over a plain white top and your everyday jeans or trousers, and you are instantly dressed. At half past eight in the morning, one garment that makes the rest of the decisions unnecessary is worth its weight in gold.
“Throw it on over a plain shirt and jeans and you look put together in five seconds flat.”
5Soft and cosy, yet it washes without fuss
Pretty knitwear usually comes with ahand-wash-only label and a prayer. Mine has been worn in the garden, taken on dog walks, and put through a gentle machine wash twice. It came out with the colours just as bright and the inside fleece just as soft as the day it arrived.
“Washed on a cool gentle cycle and hung to dry. Didn't shrink an inch and the plush inside stayed lovely.”
6Proper sizes up to 4XL, and twenty-nine designs
They run from UK 8/10 (S) right up to 20/22 (4XL), cut properly across the range rather than charging more for larger sizes. And with twenty-nine designs—from patchwork blocks and flowing waves to vibrant circles—you will not meet three other women wearing yours at the local café. Which is also how collecting starts, apparently, as I now own two.
“Ordered one to test the sizing, then came straight back for two more with the bundle discount. Warmest things I own.”
This cardigan, against the winter layers in your wardrobe
Most of us put up with winter clothes we do not particularly like because we want to stay warm. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
About the price
Every cardigan in the collection is £39.95 at the moment, down from £134.95, with the same price across all sizes from 8/10 up to 20/22. And if you combine two or more—which I did once I felt the first one—you get up to 25% extra off.
I am careful with money and I will not pretend otherwise, so I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that they are a small shop selling directly and the autumn offer is on now while current stock lasts. What I can tell you from my side is that turning the thermostat down a notch in the afternoons paid for mine rather quickly, and Vera has since ordered a second design.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before ordering. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women's words.
If your own wardrobe is full of sensible, dreary layers that leave you shivering in the sitting room, this is the cardigan I would put round your shoulders myself, while the design and size you want are still there.
Helen
