A Letter From Vivian: The Amara
A letter from the founder
Nothing in her closet is unpleasant. Nothing in it is a pleasure, either.
On the six things that made me choose the Amara, how it compares to the sweatshirt you reach for on a cold morning, and why it is $59.95 for our twentieth year.
I am Vivian, and I opened this boutique twenty years ago with one idea: that a woman should not have to choose between comfortable and beautiful.
Here is where I watch it break down. Open your closet on a Tuesday morning in November. There is nothing wrong in there. Everything fits, everything is clean, everything is perfectly fine. And there is not one thing in it you are looking forward to putting on.
That is not an accident. It is what happens when only two kinds are ever offered to you. There is the comfortable one — the sweatshirt, which is genuinely comfortable, and which is also the reason you look through the window before you answer the door. And there is the good one, which looks right and which you cannot properly relax in, so it stays on its hanger waiting for occasions that mostly never come.
Nobody makes the third thing. Something a woman would be glad to see in her hands at seven in the morning.
I never accepted that a woman had to choose.
The Amara is my answer. It is a quilt made into a hoodie — a sun coming up over hills, with a field of flowers running along the bottom — and the stitching in it is real. There were six things I would not do without.
The quilting is sewn, not printed on
This is the first thing I check and the thing most often faked. Plenty of colorful sweatshirts are a flat photograph of a quilt printed onto fleece, and you can tell within a second of touching one. Here the stitching does the work. The channels are sewn along each band of color, the sun is quilted in rings that stand proud of the surface, and every stitched line follows the shape it belongs to rather than running straight across the whole garment. That is also where the warmth comes from — quilting holds air, so it can be warm without being heavy.
“The quilted stitching makes it feel more substantial than an ordinary hoodie. It has that handmade-looking quality I was hoping for.”
Elaine B., Richmond“The sun design is what caught my eye, but the quilting is what made me keep it. It feels cozy without being bulky.”
Marilyn C., AshevilleIt is one picture, not a pattern repeated
Most printed clothing is a tile. One motif, repeated until it fills the shape, and it does not matter where on the garment any part of it lands. The Amara is composed. The sun sits at the centre of the chest, the rays open outward across the shoulders and down the arms, the hills roll across the body underneath it, and the flowers gather along the hem and around the cuffs where a border belongs. There is a horizon in it. Somebody decided where everything goes, and that is a completely different object from a repeat.
“The sun and rolling colors make me smile every time I put it on. I’ve had more compliments on this than any sweatshirt I own.”
Barbara L., GreenvilleA hood lined in the same patchwork
Turn the hood back and it carries on inside. The lining is the same quilted patchwork as the outside rather than the plain grey jersey that almost every hoodie hides in there, hoping nobody looks. It costs more to do and nobody would blame a maker for skipping it, which is precisely why I take it as a signal about everything I cannot see. And it is a proper hood — deep enough to actually go up when the wind gets going.
“The hood gives me just enough extra warmth when the wind picks up. I’ve worn it on several chilly morning walks.”
Kathleen M., SavannahThere is a pocket at the front
A small thing, and it is not even mentioned on the product page, which is why I am mentioning it here. There is a pocket at the front for your hands. On a cold morning that is the difference between a garment you are wearing and a garment you are comfortable in, and it is the first place your hands go when you stop walking and stand still to talk to somebody.
Cut relaxed — XS through 5XL, one price
It falls from the shoulder rather than sitting on the body, so it is easy across the middle and pulls on over a tee or a light sweater without dragging anywhere. And it runs XS, S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL and 5XL — nine sizes, every one of them the same price. I have never been able to explain, to myself or to anyone, why so many shops stop at large and then act puzzled about who left.
“I like how the relaxed shape falls over my middle instead of clinging. It is very easy to wear with jeans.”
Donna R., CharlestonIt has so many colors in it that nothing has to match
This was the argument that decided it for me, and it is the opposite of what you would expect. A garment with one strong color forces a decision every time — what goes with it, what does not. A garment with forty colors in it stops asking. The orange is in there and so is the teal and so is the purple, so whatever plain pants you own are already spoken for. The busiest thing in the closet turns out to be the easiest one to get dressed around.
“There are so many colors in this that I hardly have to think about matching it. Even my plainest pants work.”
Janice T., Raleigh“I normally live in navy and gray, so this was a big change for me. Surprisingly, it has become one of my most-worn casual pieces.”
Susan H., NewportThe Amara, against the one you reach for now
| The usual cold-morning sweatshirt | The Amara | |
|---|---|---|
| The front | A logo, or nothing at all | A sun over hills, composed as one picture |
| Warmth | Flat fleece, warm by thickness | Sewn quilting that holds air |
| Hood | Shallow, lined in plain jersey | Deep, lined in the same patchwork |
| Shape | Boxy, or clings at the middle | Falls from the shoulder, easy across |
| Sizing | Stops at XL, if you are lucky | XS through 5XL, one price |
I refuse to accept that the comfortable thing in a woman’s closet has to be the dull one. That is the whole reason the Amara is in the shop.
Why we’re clearing it now
The Amara came in at $174.95. Quilting a whole garment this way is slow work, and slow work is what you are paying for at that number. But the shop turns twenty this year, and my daughter Pearl is beside me at the counter most days now, which is not a thing I let myself count on when I started out on my own. We wanted to mark it by handing something back to the women who kept the doors open, so it is going out at a little over a third.
I will tell you the honest reason I am comfortable doing that. A woman who buys one cheerful thing after fifteen years of navy does not stop at one. She comes back in March for the next one. That is the bet, and I am happy to make it at $59.95.
★★★★★4.8 out of 5 — from 3,524+ reviews
$174.95$59.95
20th Anniversary Sale — Save 66%
- Sewn quilting — warmth without the weight
- A sun and hills composed as one picture, not a repeat
- A deep hood, lined in the same patchwork
- A pocket at the front for your hands
- Relaxed through the middle — XS, S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL, 5XL
- Free UPS shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee
Every size the same price · while sizes last
Twenty years behind a counter teaches you to read a pause. A woman picks this one up, and she is not deciding whether she likes it. That was settled across the room.
She is working out whether a woman of her age is supposed to want the sun on the front of her sweatshirt.
She is. Go and pick your size.
— Vivian · Vivian & Pearl Newport
see the Amara — $59.95 →This is a personal letter from the founder of Vivian & Pearl Newport. Customer reviews are quoted as written. · US family brand since 2006 · Free UPS shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee.