A note from Leya
At 67, I'd given up on blazers because the nice ones never seemed to come in my size
I don't usually write these, and I nearly didn't. But I've found myself saying the same thing to so many women lately that it seemed easier to write it down properly.
At the start of the month, the WI asked me to give a talk about my dahlias. Twenty minutes, standing at the front of the village hall, with forty women looking at me. The dahlias I could manage. It was the standing up at the front that worried me, because I had nothing to wear that made me feel ready for it.
I went into town to look for a blazer, and it was the same story as always. The tailored ones, the ones that actually looked elegant, stopped a size or two before mine. The ones that came in my size were cut like a box, as though anyone over a size sixteen had stopped caring about shape. Elegant or my size. At our age, we're quietly expected to settle for the box.
I haven't stopped wanting to look elegant. I just stopped finding anything elegant that fitted.
Then my sister sent me a link
I'd moaned about it on the phone to my sister, and that evening a link arrived with a message that just said, try this. It was a plain blazer with a proper lapel collar and a tailored shape, and the sizes went all the way up to a UK 22. I read that twice. My first thought was that the bigger sizes would be the usual box with a nicer photograph. Then I read that the cut was tailored without being tight, and I thought I'd risk it.
It's the Clara from Susan and Kate London, a British label started by two sisters. It's a classic blazer, plain and simple, with a lapel collar and a tailored cut that gives you shape without squeezing. It comes down to the hip, which I was glad of. I ordered it in blue that evening, and told my sister she'd better be right.
What happened after the talk
I wore it to the village hall last Thursday, over a plain top and my good trousers. The talk went better than I'd feared. But afterwards, over the tea and biscuits, I had more questions about the blazer than about the dahlias. Three women asked where it was from, and one of them, who is about my size, wrote the name down in the back of her diary.
It has hardly been back on the hanger since. Lunch with my son, a concert at the cathedral, and the garden centre with the labrador waiting in the car. It looks right in all three places, and I've stood up a little straighter in every one of them.
Three things worth knowing
One. It's tailored, not tight. The cut gives you a shape, which is the whole point of a blazer, but it doesn't pull or pinch. It fits the way I'd hoped, rather than the way I'd braced myself for.
Two. The length is right. It comes down to the hip, so it sits neatly over trousers and doesn't stop at the exact spot you'd rather it didn't.
Three. It dresses up whatever's underneath. Over jeans and a plain top, it looks like I've made an effort. Over a dress for an evening out, it looks properly elegant. It's done more for my wardrobe than anything I've bought in years.
About the price
I'll be honest, the price is usually the first thing people ask about.
The Clara is £34.95. It was £70.00.
My first thought was that there had to be a catch, because I've paid more than that for boxy jackets I never felt right in. There isn't one that I've found. Susan and Kate London sell directly, with no shop in the middle taking a cut, and they have a sale on at the moment. Delivery is free, and I checked before ordering that I could send it back within 30 days if the size was wrong.
I read the reviews first, the way I imagine you're doing now. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not a suspiciously perfect five, which if anything made me trust it more. It also comes in red, and my sister says I should have both.
What I'd tell you if we were friends
If you and I were sat in the garden with a pot of tea and you asked me, this is what I'd say.
If you've walked past the blazers in a shop because you already knew they'd stop before your size, or look like a box when they didn't, it's worth ten minutes of your evening to have a look. Not because a blazer will change your life. It won't. But feeling elegant without apologising for my size is a small thing I'd quietly given up on, and I'd rather you didn't give up on it too.
The sale is on at the moment, and the middle sizes are always the first to go.
The dahlias have nearly finished for the year. The blazer, I suspect, is only just getting started.
Leya
Clara | Elegant Blazer
£70.00 £34.95
- Tailored cut that doesn't feel tight
- Classic lapel collar, hip length
- Dresses up jeans or finishes a smart outfit
- Blue or red · UK 8 to 22
- Free UK delivery
Sale — while sizes last.
Leya Whitmore is 67 and lives in Guildford with a labrador. She is not a fashion writer.
Susan and Kate London · Free UK delivery · 30 day returns