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For forty years I bought coats that would “go with everything.” This is a letter about the first one I bought because it made me smile
Six things this long tailored coat gets right that four decades of sensible black and navy never did, from a woman who had quietly decided she was past being noticed.
Catharine Laurent · Dallas · 5 min read
I am 64, and I have owned, by my count, eleven winter coats. Every one of them was black or navy. Every one of them was chosen in the same way, standing in a fitting room hearing my mother's voice say “you can't go wrong with navy,” and every one of them did exactly what it was bought to do, which was keep the rain off and not draw attention. I was very good at not drawing attention. Thirty-one years in front of a class of six-year-olds will do that to you. So this is not a review. It is a woman who finally bought a coat for a different reason, saying why.
The coat I am writing about is the Madison, a long tailored coat from Novira Dallas, a small American shop that dresses women our age. Mine is the dusty rose pink. I saw it on a woman in the line at the post office on Greenville Avenue, and I am ashamed to say I followed her out to ask where it was from. When Novira later asked if they could share my letter, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Here is what forty years of sensible coats taught me. A coat is the first thing anybody sees of you for half the year. It is what you wear to the doctor’s appointment, the school gate, the funeral and the lunch with old friends, and for half the year it is, to the outside world, more or less all of you. And I had spent all of that on looking like I did not want to be looked at.
For six months of every year, the coat is most of what anybody sees of you. I had spent forty years making sure they saw navy.
This is the first coat I have ever bought because of how it made me feel rather than what it would go with, and having worn it for a month, to lunches, to church, round the stores and to my granddaughter's school concert, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
It goes all the way down
It is a proper long coat, falling to the ankle, so it covers whatever is underneath. Jeans and boots, my good dress, the gardening pants I should not have gone into town in. Nobody knows, because the coat is all they see. And when the wind comes whipping down the street, my legs are not the first to find out.
Wore it over my oldest jeans to the garden center café. The girl at the register asked where it was from. In forty years, nobody has asked where a navy coat was from.
The shoulders do the work for you
It is properly tailored, with structured shoulders and notched lapels, and the effect on a woman of my age is hard to describe. You stand up straighter. You do not mean to, it is just that the coat has shoulders, so you find you have them too. I caught sight of myself in the window of Walgreens and honestly did not recognize the woman for a second.
Jean: “You’re standing differently.” Me: “It’s the coat.” Jean: “It is not the coat.” It is the coat.
There is a leopard hiding inside
This is the part I love most, and I did not expect to. The coat is lined in leopard print, which nobody sees until you walk and it swings open, and then there it is. The cuffs turn back to show a little of it, which is as much leopard as I would ever have dared on the outside. It is a private joke between me and the coat, and I find I am smiling at it in parking lots.
Granddaughter, aged nine, spotted the lining at the school concert and announced to the row that Grandma was “secretly a leopard.” Best review I have had.
That color, and that sheen
The pink is not a little girl's pink. It is a dusty, grown-up rose, and the fabric has a soft, deep sheen that catches the light without looking shiny. On a gray Dallas morning it is the only warm color on the street. If pink is a step too far for you, it also comes in a deep blue, which is what Jean chose, and which is about as far from sensible navy as a blue can get.
Rained all day. Went out anyway, purely to wear it. That has never once happened with a black coat.
One button, two pockets, nothing fussy
A single button at the front and two flap pockets at the hip, and that is it. No belt to lose, no row of toggles for cold fingers, no zipper to catch on a scarf. It goes on in a second and looks as though it took me twenty minutes. The pockets are where my keys, my glasses and a dog biscuit now live.
Out of the door in under a minute for the 9:40 bus. Looked, according to Geoff, “like you’re off somewhere nice.” I was off to the dentist.
It makes everything underneath look deliberate
Novira suggest wearing it over a black turtleneck, dark jeans and boots, and they are right, that is how I wear it most days. But I have also worn it over a dress to a christening and over a sweater to walk Biscuit, and each time it made whatever was underneath look as if I had planned it. That is a great deal to ask of one coat, and it manages.
Lunch downtown with Jean. Two compliments on the way in, one on the way out. I have stopped keeping count, which says something.
This coat, against the one that would “go with everything”
Most of us never choose a coat. We choose the absence of a mistake, and wear it for a decade. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Stops at the knee, wind finds the rest
Shapeless, so you slouch to match
Navy outside, navy inside
Disappears on a gray morning
Chosen so nobody would notice
Falls to the ankle, covers everything
Tailored shoulders that lift your posture
Leopard lining and turn-back cuffs
Dusty rose or deep blue, with a soft sheen
Chosen because it made me smile
About the price, and the sizing
The Madison is $57.95 at the moment, down from $113.00, in both the pink and the blue. I have paid more than that for a navy coat I disliked from the first day, so I will not pretend I deliberated for long.
I will pass on what Novira told me, which is that they are a small shop selling directly and the sale is on for the winter stock. Their words, not mine. They also take a bit more off if you buy more than one item, up to 20%, which is how Jean and I came to order together.
On sizing, I want to be straight with you. It comes in S to 2XL, five sizes, and it is a tailored coat, so it is cut to fit rather than to swamp you. I ordered my usual size and it fits with a sweater underneath. If you are between sizes, their team answers emails within a day on weekdays, and I would ask them before ordering.
Delivery was free and tracked, it was packed within a couple of days and reached me inside two weeks, and there is a thirty-day money-back guarantee if it is not right. That is what got me to press the button. Jean pressed it the same afternoon.
leopard-lined
guarantee
US delivery
If every coat you have ever owned was bought so that nobody would notice, this is the one I would hand you myself, while your color and size are still there. Go on. Let them notice.
Catharine
Madison · Elegant Long Tailored Coat
Winter sale · bundle and save up to 20%
- Ankle-length tailored silhouette
- Structured shoulders and notched lapels
- Hidden leopard-print lining
- Leopard-print turn-back cuffs
- Soft fabric with a deep sheen
- Single button and two flap pockets
- Dusty rose pink or deep blue · sizes S to 2XL
- FREE tracked US delivery & 30-day money-back guarantee
Sale on now, making room for the winter stock.
About the writer. Catharine Laurent is 64 and lives in Dallas with her husband Geoff and a spaniel called Biscuit. She taught elementary school for thirty-one years and still cannot walk past a library.
This page is an advertisement for Novira Dallas. Individual experiences may vary. Novira Dallas · FREE tracked US delivery · 30-day money-back guarantee.