A Letter From the Founder: The Bettany
Nobody Makes the Jacket for the Eight Weeks Between the Cardigan and the Coat. So We Had the Bettany Made.
Six things I insisted on, why it is not lined, and why it is going out at £44.95.
My name is Emma. My sister Alison and I have had the shop just off the green in Richmond for eleven years, and every year in the first week of September the same conversation starts at the counter.
It is not cold. It is not warm either. Women come in wanting something they cannot name, and what they describe, every time, is a jacket that stops at the hip and does not have to be fastened. Then they look at what is on the rail and it is either a cardigan or a coat, because that is what the trade makes.
The in-between layer is genuinely hard to sell into a shop. It has a short season, it is not a coat so nobody feels they need it, and it costs nearly as much to make. So it does not get made. Six things came out of deciding to make it anyway.
1It stops at the hip. Not below.
Two inches lower and it becomes a short coat, which is a different garment with a different job. At the hip it sits over a t-shirt or a blouse without cutting you anywhere awkward and it does not fight with the trousers underneath. This is the measurement I went back on twice and it is the one that decides whether the whole thing works.
2No lining.
A lining makes a jacket a commitment. It adds weight, it holds heat you did not ask for, and it is the reason most jackets end up carried rather than worn. Unlined, the Bettany goes into a bag at half eleven when the sun comes out and it comes back out at four. That is the entire point of an in-between layer and a lining quietly destroys it.
3The ruffle narrow, and only down the front edges.
The first sample came back with a gathered frill at the neck and it aged the jacket by twenty years in the wrong direction. What I wanted was a narrow trim running down the two front edges and nothing at all round the neck, so that the opening has a line to it when the jacket hangs loose. It is a detail that has to be small to work, and every instinct in a factory is to make it bigger.
4Buttons that fasten properly, and never have to.
Most women will wear this open and that is how it was designed. But a jacket with decorative buttons is a jacket that has given up on the cold mornings, so the placket has enough body to hold a straight line and the buttonholes are worked to take a strain. Do the middle two on a windy day and it holds.
5A print scaled for a grown woman.
Small busy florals read as fussy from more than a few feet away and they are cheaper to print, which is why there are so many of them. Ours is drawn larger and softer with real colour in it, so it holds together across a whole back and reads as a pattern rather than as noise.
6It has to go up to a UK 28/30.
This is where I dug in hardest. Floral jackets in this country tend to stop at an XL, and the women who most want an open layer that is not a cardigan are very often the women the trade stops making for. The Bettany runs from a UK 8/10 to a UK 28/30 in the same cut. It cost us more in grading and it is the decision on this list I am least willing to argue about.
Set against what is usually on the rail
| A cardigan | A coat | The Bettany | |
|---|---|---|---|
| In a light wind | Does nothing | Too much | About right |
| When it warms up | Stays on, too warm | Carried | Into the bag |
| Over a blouse | Reads as indoors | Swamps it | Sits at the hip |
| Fastening | Pulls sideways | Zip to the chin | Two buttons, or none |
| Sizes | Varies | Varies | UK 8/10 to 28/30 |
- One does nothing, one is too much
- Carried by eleven o'clock
- Swamps a blouse, or reads as indoors
- Zip to the chin, or nothing
- Sizes stop where they stop
- Right for the in-between weeks
- Unlined, so it packs
- Stops at the hip
- Two buttons, or none
- UK 8/10 to UK 28/30
The layer nobody makes is the layer everybody asks me for in September. Eleven years of the same conversation is enough evidence for me.
Why it is £44.95
Short season, small run, and a grading bill across nine sizes that a bigger buyer would have refused. The Bettany came in at £140 and it is going out at £44.95. More than one and it drops again: 15% on two, 20% on three, 25% on four or more.
One honest note. This run came in a single colourway, the pink floral. I would have liked a second and we could not have it at this quantity, so the only decision you have to make is the size.
"I own a winter coat and six cardigans and absolutely nothing for the eight weeks in between. It is the layer I had been missing for about fifteen years without ever quite naming it."
If a jacket has to be zipped to the chin before it does anything, it is a coat and it should be sold as one.
September is the week the question starts. If you have spent a few autumns carrying a coat you did not need, this is the run to look at while the sizes are there.
Bettany · Floral Ruffle Button-Front Jacket
- Stops at the hip, so it is a jacket and not a short coat
- Unlined, so it goes into a bag when it warms up
- Narrow ruffle down the front edges, nothing at the neck
- Buttons with a proper placket, for the cold mornings
- One colourway · UK 8/10 to UK 28/30 · Free UK delivery · 30-day returns
The Bettany · £44.95 while sizes last
Take two and save 15%, three and save 20%, four or more and save 25%. One colourway only, in sizes UK 8/10 to UK 28/30.
Emma, for Emma & Alison Winslow · Richmond
See the Bettany at £44.95 →This is a letter from one of the two sisters who run The Winslow Sisters. Prices and sizes shown are correct at the time of writing and change as the run sells through. This page is a paid advertisement for The Winslow Sisters. The Winslow Sisters · Richmond · Free UK delivery · 30-day returns. Your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 are not affected.