The layered top skims, and it looks dressed up on its own

This is the thing I would tell you if I only had a minute. The top is not an ordinary T-shirt or a stiff blouse. It has an asymmetrical layered design with an open-shoulder detail, and the listing says the soft layers gently skim the body. That is exactly what they do. The layers fall softly over the middle rather than sitting on it, which is the part of me I have spent years hiding under jackets. And because the cascading shape already looks finished, I did not spend the afternoon trying on three different jackets to decide which one made it look smart enough.

The wide-leg trousers move like a long dress

The trousers have a wide-leg silhouette, and that was the clever surprise for me. From a distance there is some of the graceful movement I enjoy in a long dress, but they are still trousers. I watched Lorna walk to the door at the marina and the legs swung with her, nothing stiff about it. I have always felt quite at home in trousers. I simply wanted a pair that looked right at an evening celebration rather than like something I might wear to do the banking. The long, flowing shape is what makes the difference, and the fabric has the flowy feel the listing promises.

The fabric up close. Light, soft layers, and you can see the second one underneath.

Occasion-ready, and comfortable to sit in all evening

The trousers have a high-rise elastic waistband. It is not the first detail anyone notices in the photograph, but it is the one I was most grateful for. Family dinners are for sitting, talking, eating and getting up for another photograph, and I do not want a waistband to become the main event. Wendy’s dinner was at a restaurant along the Esplanade, a long table with the whole family around it, and we were there from six until well after ten. I sat, I ate dessert, I stood for every photograph my daughter Emma wanted, and I did not think about my clothes once.

On the restaurant terrace on the Esplanade, before Wendy’s dinner. Peter took this one.

A fresh white that suits a warm spring evening

I chose the White because it goes with almost every pair of dress shoes, earrings and handbags I already own, and it looks so fresh on a warm evening. Sometimes the simplest colour leaves the most room for the things you enjoy wearing. I did not need anything sparkly or new to make the layered top look interesting. The care is easy too: the listing says machine wash cold on a gentle cycle and hang to dry, which is how I treat everything I actually wear. The morning of the dinner I left both pieces folded on the kitchen table while I found my earrings, and they looked crisp and ready.

Folded on the kitchen table the morning of the dinner. Two pieces, one outfit, no wardrobe puzzle.

Two pieces that go together, and apart

How many times have I bought a beautiful top and then discovered I own nothing quite right to wear with it? The Annette is a matching set, so the top and the trousers share the same colour and the same flowing look, and the listing calls it a complete outfit instantly. That is exactly how it felt. But the pieces also work on their own. The week after the dinner I wore the white trousers to church with a plain blue top from my drawer, and the layered top has been out with my own dark trousers to a lunch in Maryborough. One purchase, and I have three outfits from it already.

People ask, and it comes in five colours and S to 3XL

I was not expecting to be asked about it, at my own sister’s birthday. Wendy took one look at me as I came in and asked where it was from, and one of her friends from bowls asked again over the main course. The Annette is listed in White, Black, Blue, Navy Blue and Red, and in sizes from S (8–10) through to 3XL (18–20). My one piece of advice is to check the size chart for both pieces before you order, because the top and the trousers have their own measurements, and the trouser length is listed for every size too.