By Linda Miller Stowe, Vermont · Posted August 2026 · 6 min read

My daughter said it at the kitchen table, and she did not mean it unkindly. She said, Mum, everything you own is the colour of oatmeal.

I laughed. Then I went upstairs and opened the wardrobe and stood there for a while, because she was right.

Black. Navy. Grey. Beige. One olive cardigan I bought in 2019. I am 57 years old and somewhere along the way I had made a decision I do not remember making, which was that colour is for other people now. Younger people. Braver people. People who do not mind being looked at.

I did not decide that on purpose. It just happened, one safe purchase at a time, until there was nothing in there that could be described as a colour.

The part that got me

A woman at my book group had on a jacket I could not stop looking at. Oranges and purples and deep greens, all in panels, like a quilt somebody had made by hand and then somehow turned into something you could wear. She is 61. She looked wonderful.

She told me it was from a small boutique in Stowe, Vermont called Abbott and Charlie, from something they call the Sunburst Collection. So I went home and looked it up, and I sat with a cup of tea and did the thing I had not bothered to do with a clothing brand in years. I read.

The print is the whole point. It is a radiating sunburst that runs across the entire piece in dozens of panels, warm oranges into deep purples into vibrant greens. It is not a small print on a safe background. It is the garment.

The cut is relaxed, not tight. Everything in the collection drapes rather than grips. That mattered to me more than the colour did, honestly. I wanted to be noticed for what I was wearing, not for what it was doing to my middle.

The sizing goes where most brands stop. The hoodie runs to 6XL. I cannot tell you how rare that is on something this bold, and how much it says about who they think this is for.

Somewhere along the way I had made a decision I do not remember making, which was that colour is for other people now.

See the Sunburst Collection

I ordered two

I meant to order one. I want that on the record. I went on intending to order the hoodie, and by the time I reached the checkout the jacket was in the basket as well, and I have not regretted it for a single day since.

Dawnella

$299.95 $59.95 Save 80%

• All-over sunburst patchwork print
• Relaxed fit, drapes and moves with you
• Generous hood with drawstring
• Sizes S to 6XL

See your size

Rhealyn

$299.95 $59.95 Save 80%

• Open-front jacket, skims the body
• Notched collar, zippered pockets
• Layers over almost anything
• Sizes XS to 3XL

See your size

The hoodie is the one I put on without thinking. The jacket is the one I put on when I want the day to go well.

What I noticed in the first week

Three things stood out, and I wrote them down because I knew I would want to remember them.

1. 1. Strangers talk to you. I do not think I understood, until it started happening, how much of being a woman my age is being politely unseen. I wore the jacket to the post office and two people spoke to me in the queue. That is not nothing.
2. 2. It goes with the beige. This was the worry, and it turned out to be no worry at all. Everything I already own is a neutral, which means all of it works underneath. I did not have to rebuild a wardrobe. I had to add two things to it.
3. 3. I stand differently. I am not going to pretend a jacket changed my life. But I catch myself in shop windows now instead of looking away, and I had not realised I had started looking away.

Now, about the price

I want to talk about the price, because it was the thing that nearly stopped me ordering. Under sixty dollars for a piece like this made me suspicious rather than excited. I sat at the kitchen table and wrote out what I had paid, or seen, for far plainer things.

So I emailed the boutique. I figured that if it was a scam, the email would bounce or nobody would bother to write back. The reply came the next morning.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sitting in my kitchen right now with a cup of tea, and you had asked me whether you should order one, this is what I would say.

I would say that the fear is not really about the colour. The fear is about being looked at, and about whether you have earned the right to take up that much visual space at our age. I felt every bit of that standing at the checkout with my card in my hand.

I would tell you that it went the other way entirely. Nobody looked at me and thought she is trying too hard. They looked and said, oh, that is wonderful, where is it from.

I would tell you to start with the jacket if you are nervous, because it goes over what you already own and you can take it off. Start with the hoodie if you want the one you will actually live in.

I would tell you that my daughter, the one who made the oatmeal remark, has since asked to borrow the jacket twice.

And I would tell you, honestly, that it is a small run and the sizes were already going when I looked again. If you can still add your size to the cart, it is still there.

If you have quietly stopped wearing colour and only just noticed, this is a gentle place to start again.

Linda Miller

See the full Sunburst Collection

Small run. If you can still add your size to the cart, it is still available.

Wear your color again