A Letter From a Reader: Six Things (The Sadie, Elaine)
Forty summers of dresses and I never wrote a word about one. This is the exception
Six things the Sadie gets right that summer dresses get wrong, from a woman who does not review clothes.
Elaine · Customer · Hervey Bay, Queensland · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Elaine, I am 62, I live in Hervey Bay with my husband Peter and Teddy, our little dog from the rescue shelter, and I have never in my life sat down to write about a dress. What I have done is spend forty summers in dresses that clung, faded, or made me look like I had given up. So this is not a review. It is a woman who was wrong about a dress, saying so.
The one I am writing about is called the Sadie, from Portsea Boutique, a small shop near the water in Portsea that Mel has run for 22 years and is now moving online. A friend from my walking group put me onto it, and when the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
A white dress covered in soft wildflowers, with a little collar and a tie at the waist. On a 62-year-old in Hervey Bay. Read on.
Here is what forty summers taught me. Summer dresses come in two piles. The sensible pile: dark, shapeless and practical, the ones that hide you so well you disappear at a family lunch. And the pretty pile: thin, fitted and short, clinging the moment the heat finds you.
Shapeless and invisible, or pretty and clingy. Those were the summer options, and I had done my years in both.
The Sadie is the first dress I have owned that is neither, and having worn it to the markets, two lunches and a birthday in Brisbane, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The day it came. I laid it on the bed expecting to send it back. I wore it the next morning.
It does not look like a sensible dress
It looks like somewhere nice to be going. Soft wildflowers in pink, lilac and pale blue on white, with fine green stems running through them. In a room full of navy and beige it is the dress people smile at, and the one they ask about.
The flowers up close. Softer than they look on a screen.
"Three women asked where it was from at the Saturday markets. Nobody has asked about a dress of mine in years."
It gives you room through the middle
The tie at the waist is soft and you set it where you like, loose or a little closer. Below it the skirt falls straight past the tummy and hips and moves when you walk. Nothing pulls when you sit down for a long lunch.
"Wore it to a three-hour lunch and forgot I had it on. That has never happened in a summer dress."
The fabric is the clever part
It is a soft, breathable fabric, so it stays cool on a humid Queensland afternoon and does not stick to you in the car. It washes, it dries on the line by lunch, and it comes back looking like it did the day it arrived.
"Thirty-three degrees at the markets and I was the only one not fanning myself."
The collar and buttons make it look finished
A small pointed collar and a button front, so it looks put together with nothing more than flat sandals. Add a pair of earrings and it is right for dinner out. My sister Wendy says this is what makes it look like a proper dress rather than a beach cover-up.
The little collar and the buttons. The detail that finished me.
"It's the collar. It looks smart without trying, and I don't need a cardigan over it to feel dressed."
Honest sizes, with the AU size printed next to each
It runs from S to 5XL, AU 8 to 24, and the size chart prints the AU size next to every letter, so there is no guessing. I ordered my usual size and it fitted straight away, with room where I wanted room.
"I'm a 20 and ordered the 3XL as the chart said. It fitted perfectly the first time."
It earns its keep between outings
This is the part I did not expect. It does the shops, my morning at the library, coffee after the walk with Teddy, and it went to Brisbane for the weekend at my daughter Emma's. My good dresses used to live in the wardrobe between occasions. This one barely gets put away.
Packed for a weekend at Emma's. The Sadie goes in first now.
The Sadie, against the summer dresses you have been buying
You can find a summer dress for thirty-odd dollars anywhere. I know, because I own the evidence. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Thin fabric that clings in the heat
Identical to every other dress on the rack
Pulls across the tummy and hips
Looks unfinished without a cardigan
One vague size, nothing printed
Soft fabric that breathes
Wildflowers people actually ask about
A tie waist and a skirt that skims
A little collar and buttons that look finished
S to 5XL, AU size printed for each
About the price
The Sadie is A$84.95 at the moment, down from A$339.95, because Portsea Boutique is closing the shop and moving online.
I will pass on what Mel told me, which is that once the shop closes, this price goes with it. Her words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that a price like that is usually where I start asking what is wrong with something, and three weeks in I have not found it. Take more than one and it comes down further: 15 percent off two, and up to 30 percent off five.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women's words.
By the front door, ready for Brisbane round two. Teddy is not coming, and he knows it.
If you have a lunch, a birthday, a weekend away or an ordinary Tuesday in your future, and your summer wardrobe is a pile of dresses that hide you, this is the one I would put in your hands myself, while your size is still there. Stop dithering and go and look.
Elaine
Sadie | Breezy Floral Summer Dress
- Soft wildflower print on white
- Room through the tummy and hips, never clings
- Soft, breathable fabric
- Little collar and button front that look finished
- Soft tie waist you set where you like
- Sizes S to 5XL (AU 8 to 24)
- Free tracked delivery & 30-day returns
Stack and save: Buy 2 save 15% · Buy 3 save 20% · Buy 4 save 25% · Buy 5 save 30%
See the SadieClearing as the Portsea shop moves online. Once a size is gone, it is gone.