A Letter From Tracy

I had been dressing for a body I have not had since 2013

My daughter said one sentence to me in my own kitchen, and I have not been able to unhear it since.

By Tracy Patterson · Naples, FloridaPosted September 2026 · 6 min read

Here is a thing I did for about twelve years without ever once deciding to do it. Every time I bought something, I bought it a size larger than I needed. Not because it fit better. Because I thought the extra room was hiding something.

What I had not worked out is that a bigger sweater does not hide a middle. It just adds a sweater. I was walking around in something shapeless and gray, holding it away from myself, and somehow believing that was the discreet option.

My daughter Madison is the one who said something, and she is the only person who could have. She comes by most Sundays, so she has watched this go on for years without comment. Then one afternoon she was leaning on my counter and she said, Mom, you keep buying clothes for a body you are trying to apologize for.

I did not have anything to say back. She was right, and worse, she was kind about it.

Then she got her phone out and showed me the Amanda. It comes from a family shop up in Newport called Vivian & Pearl, a mother and daughter, which Madison thought was funny given the conversation. Vivian opened it twenty years ago on the idea that a woman should not have to choose between comfortable and beautiful, and she still goes through everything herself before it goes in the shop.

I looked at it for four days before I ordered it. Here is what I found out.

1A one-of-a-kind patchwork print

The first thing is that it does not look like anything else. A sun worked into one shoulder with the rays running out across the whole thing in strips of orange and purple and green and gold, like somebody sat down and made it rather than ordered it.

And it carries on round the back. There is a second sun on the hood and the rays fan down over the shoulders. I noticed that the first day because a woman behind me at the pharmacy told me about it before I had even turned around, which does not happen to me.

2A cozy hood to keep the chill off

I have owned hoods that are a flat flap of cloth sewn on the back so the label can say hooded. You put it up, it sits there like a napkin, and the first bit of wind takes it straight off again.

This one is shaped and lined, and it stays where I put it. It has a drawstring, and the cords are made out of the same patterned fabric rather than the white cord everyone else uses. That is a small thing that I noticed on day one and have thought about since, because small things are usually how you tell.

3Soft, warm and polished

This is the part I would not have believed from a photograph. The quilting is genuinely stitched, that is also where the warmth comes from, apparently: the stitching traps air in the channels, so it is warm without being heavy. What I actually mean by polished is simpler than that. It does not look like a sweatshirt. I have worn it to lunch and I have worn it to the grocery store, and in neither place did I feel like I had given up.

4Long sleeves which cover the arms

I will say the quiet part. The forearms are the first place I feel the cold and they are also the part of me I would rather not have on display, and a three-quarter sleeve manages to fail at both of those at the same time.

These go the whole way down and gather at the cuff, so when I push them back to wash a dish they stay pushed back instead of sliding down into the water. That is the entire review of the sleeves and I would not change a word of it.

5A relaxed, oversized fit

This one is cut relaxed on purpose rather than just made bigger. It hangs off the shoulder and moves easily through the middle, but it has a line to it. It goes on over a tee or a light sweater without dragging anywhere. It is roomy in the way a thing is roomy when somebody designed it that way, not in the way a thing is roomy when you have bought a size up and are hoping for the best.

6It fits the body you have

It runs XS through 5XL, nine sizes, and every one of them is the same price. I want to say something about that, because I nearly did the old thing again and ordered up.

I did not. I ordered the size I actually am, which I had not done in years, and it fits. That is the whole of it. Nobody is being asked to be a different shape first, and there is no point in the size range where the price quietly goes up as though the larger sizes are an imposition.

Here is what I noticed after a week, which was nothing at all. I had it on from the morning until after dinner and I never once held the front of it away from myself. Not at the table, not in the car, not standing in my own kitchen. I only realized I had stopped because Madison came by on the Sunday and did not say anything, which from her is the whole review.

What these solved for me

Why Vivian and Pearl are clearing them now

The Amanda came in at $174.95, which Vivian tells me is what a quilted piece like this costs to make properly. The boutique turns twenty this year and Pearl works beside her mother now, and they decided to mark it by handing something back to the women who have kept the doors open since 2006.

So it is going out at $59.95 while the sizes last. I would not normally repeat a shop's reasoning back to you, but I asked Vivian why she was doing it and that was the answer, and I believed her.

★★★★★4.8 out of 5 — from 3,524+ reviews

$174.95$59.95

20th Anniversary Sale — Save 66%

• A one-of-a-kind patchwork print, front and back
• A cozy lined hood with patterned drawstrings
• Stitched quilting — soft, warm and polished
• Long sleeves, gathered at the wrist
• A relaxed, oversized fit · XS through 5XL, one price
• Machine washable at a low temperature
• Free UPS shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee

SEE IF YOUR SIZE IS STILL IN STOCK →

Every size the same price · while sizes last

I have thought a good deal about what Madison said, and I think she was pointing at something bigger than a sweater. You spend a while apologizing for the body you have by putting a larger and larger amount of gray cloth over it, and the apology becomes the outfit.

I am not going to tell you a hooded sweater fixed that. But I put on my own size for the first time in years, and I stopped doing the thing with my hand, and those are both true.

If you have been buying a size up for a while, order the one you actually are. That is the only advice in this whole letter.

Tracy

Tracy Patterson · Naples, Florida

This is a personal account from a Vivian & Pearl Newport customer. Tracy was not paid to write it. Customer reviews are quoted as written. · US family brand since 2006 · Free UPS shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee.