A letter from a reader

There are three tops in my wardrobe I stopped wearing, and it was never the tops

I am 66 and I worked this out embarrassingly late. There is a cream jersey top I love and had not worn for two years, and I had decided it was the top. Too clingy, I said. Not flattering any more. Put it at the back.

It was not the top. It was what was under it. Every seam, every edge of the band, the little ridge where the strap joins, all of it printing straight through and turning a plain top into a diagram.

My sister put me on to this one. It is from The Winslow Sisters, the small shop in Richmond that Emma and Alison have had for eleven years, and it is called the Annabel.

It has no wire in it at all, which I had expected to mean no shape. It does not. There is a gather at the front that does the work a wire usually does, and a wide soft band underneath that stays where you put it instead of riding up over the course of an afternoon. And the edges are bonded rather than stitched, so there is nothing to print through.

I got to the end of a whole day and had not once thought about it. I cannot remember the last time that was true.

The straps adjust properly and have not slid back down once, which after years of hitching one up in the supermarket is worth saying out loud. And it is soft enough that I have fallen asleep in it more than once without noticing.

It was £29.95, down from £89. There are eight colours and the sizes run from a UK 8/10 to a UK 18/20, with the measurements on the size chart so you can check before you order rather than after.

Emma has written her own piece about the six things she insisted on when they had it made, including why the edges are bonded. It is here if that sort of thing interests you.

If there are tops in your wardrobe you have quietly stopped wearing, it is worth checking whether it is really the tops.