Perseverance Pays

They do say that everything comes to she who waits.

And this she waited two months for this oatmeal jumper.

Classy neutral colour, warm soft knit, sleek long fit - what's not to love?

Back in September I tried on this jumper.  Oatmeal was the colour.  Cashmere mix was the fabric.  And marquee was the style!

It was truly huge, both in width and length (it came down to just above my knees!).  It passed on classy colour and soft to the touch knit, but failed disastrously on sizing and did absolutely nothing to enhance my shape.  Bag of potatoes came to mind.

No surprise, I returned it.

But search as I did, I found nothing better.  The Next jumper was the colour I was looking for (though sweet Susan H may argue that oatmeal is NOT a colour!).  The knit was quality and the style fundamentally suited my needs.  I just needed to avoid the bag of potatoes look (so not flattering).  So I braced myself for further disappointment and reordered, but this time two sizes down.

Yup, I got the sizing right this time.

I didn't want the uber baggy look - I have one of those in a chunkier knit.  I wanted sleek that could be dressed up or down.

It's first outing, Saturday's delivery of beauty advent calendars, was a delight.

Berry coated leggings tucked inside old Gabor chocolate leather boots, silk scarf (charitied) in colours toning to the leggings.

This was perfect for the calendar delivery, a coffee ... picking up a radiator valve - yes, this is retirement life lived to the max!

But maybe it needed a slight tweak for supper with The Sibs.

Well, all it needed was a delicate draping of silver jewellery, a tethering of the scarf and a change of boots.  I switched my runaround brown boots for something more up to date.  These berry boots (M&S AW17) are the exact shade as the coated leggings, so they elongate the leg (in illusion, not literally!).  The pointed toe further elongates.  (Stating the obvious, my short legs need all the lengthening trickery fashion can throw at them!).   Swapping my Brown boot chunky heel for a more on-trend cone heel finishes off my light touch evening tweaking.

Add a chunky knit wool  jacket from Zara and my work was done.  Daytime errand outfit to evening restaurant outfit was but a moment's work.

So that's my message, folks.  A long neutral jumper teamed with a rich colour like berry can take you from a smartish daytime look to a smartish evening look with the bare minimum of effort.  And I'm all about minimum effort!

And with a bold sizing choice, this Next jumper certainly ticks all the long neutral boxes.

Sizing is all over the place when it comes to this season's big jumpers.  I've learned from this little exercise that you've really got to play the field with sizing - be bold, be brave and experiment.  Don't give up, persevere and you will get the perfect big jumper you need to compliment your wardrobe and your shape.

With big jumpers, as with life, perseverance pays.

A la perchoine,

Mary.