A Letter From Vivian: The Floral & Cat Art Coats
A letter from the founder
There is a cat on your mug and flowers on every card you send. Then you open the wardrobe, and it is all navy.
On the six things I looked for before this rail came into the store, what happens in the first week you wear one, and why every coat here is $109.95 for our twentieth year.
Twenty years behind this counter, and I have learned that a woman's clothes are the last place to look if you want to know what she likes.
Her house tells you in about four seconds.
There are pots on the windowsill that get spoken to. There is a cat asleep in the one chair with good light, on a cushion that was not bought for a cat and now belongs to one. The calendar has flowers on it. The mug she reaches for first, out of a cupboard with eight in it, has a cat on it, and it was a present from somebody who knew her.
Then she opens the wardrobe, and it is navy, charcoal, and a black that used to be a different black.
Nobody decided that. It arrived one sensible purchase at a time. And the coat is the worst of it, because a coat is the most public thing a woman owns — worn over everything, seen by everyone, kept for years — and somewhere along the way it became the most anonymous thing she owns as well.
So there are only two subjects on this rail. Not anything and everything. Flowers, and cats. Those are the two things women in this store tell me about without being asked, and they are the two things nobody will make them a coat out of.
There were six things I would not do without.
Two subjects, and over fifty coats
The difficult part was never finding fifty pictures. It was turning down the four hundred behind them. Nothing cute. Nothing cartoon. No slogans, no whiskers drawn on with a marker pen, nothing that would make a grown woman look as though she had lost a bet. What is left is painting. The Tabitha carries a cat's face in teal, ochre, rust and sage with gold eyes you can see from the far side of a parking lot, and it carries on around the back. Others are nothing but poppies. Peacocks. Watercolour blooms bleeding into one another. Two subjects, and not one of them is a version of another — which means the question in front of you is not whether you like them. It is which one is yours.
"My daughter sent me the link with the words 'Mom, this is you.' Between the cat and the teal, she wasn't wrong. Such a fun coat to wear with my otherwise very plain wardrobe."
Joyce N., Bloomington"The cat's golden eyes are what sold me. I also like that the artwork continues around the back. Pretty from both sides."
Robyn C., Santa FePeople will talk to you in it
This is the one I did not see coming. I brought the rail in for the pictures and for the lining, and what comes back in the post is about neither. It is about strangers. A woman in a bookshop asking to see the back of it. Somebody at a checkout saying she has a cat like that one at home. A daughter sending the link with three words attached. I want to be careful about how I put this, because it is not a small thing: a woman who has spent thirty years being sensibly dressed is not used to being spoken to by people who do not know her, and it turns out most of them rather like it. You cannot print that on a label. It happens in the first week.
"I'm particular about cat-themed clothes. Some are a little too cutesy for my taste, but this looks more like a painting. The rust and teal are lovely together. A woman at the bookstore asked to see the back, which gave us both a laugh."
Yvonne L., AshevilleThe warmth is in the lining, and the lining goes down the sleeves
Brushed fleece, collar to hem, and — this is the part I check first and the part that gets skipped — on through both sleeves. A sleeve is fiddly to line, so plenty of makers do the body, stop at the shoulder seam, and hope nobody notices. The sleeve is exactly where a woman gets cold. Lined the whole way through, a coat is as warm as a thick one at about half the weight on the shoulders, and there is a difference between the two that has nothing to do with temperature. A coat that is warm because it is thick is a coat you take off the moment you are indoors. A coat that is warm because it is lined is one you keep on through a whole lunch.
"I bought this for the design, honestly, but the lining deserves a mention. It's soft all the way down the sleeves, not just inside the hood. Wore it out for breakfast on a chilly morning and was quite comfortable. Doesn't have that cumbersome feeling some of my coats do."
Loretta M., LouisvilleThe hood, the zip and the pockets — the three things no photograph shows
A photograph will sell you the picture on a coat. It will not tell you whether the hood is lined, or whether it goes over hair that has just been done, and those are two separate questions that usually get answered badly. These hoods are cut roomy, lined in the same brushed fleece rather than left as bare shell, and drawstringed, so you are not holding one shut with a spare hand in a car park. The zip runs the whole way, top to hem, which makes open-or-closed a decision you take each morning instead of one the coat takes for you. And there are two pockets, set in at the hip, deep enough for a phone, keys and a pair of gloves at once — the difference between walking to the post office with a bag and walking to the post office without one.
It goes on over whatever you already have on
It falls past the hip and hangs straight, with nothing drawn in at the middle, and that is deliberate. A coat that nips at the waist has an opinion about what you are wearing underneath it. This one has none. It goes over a thick sweater, over a dress, over the shirt you already had on at eight in the morning, and it does not change shape depending on which. Long enough to cover what you would like covered, and roomy enough through the body that zipping it up is not a negotiation.
"Room through the middle even zipped up. That's a big plus for me. Nice length, too."
Beth R., Grand RapidsS through 4XL, and the loud one costs the same as the quiet one
Every coat on this rail is the same price, in every size, and I want to say why that matters more than it sounds. The moment one coat costs more than another, the dearer one quietly becomes the good one — and the good one is always the safe one. That is how a woman ends up carrying the plain coat to the counter and looking back at the painted one on her way out. Take the difference away and there is nothing left to be sensible about. They are true to size and cut generous, so go one size up if you like a thick sweater underneath. They wash at home on a cool wash. Do not tumble dry them: hang them up and let them dry, and they will look like this in five winters.
"I turned 60 this year and decided to stop buying everything in beige. This was quite a departure! Tried it on with black jeans and boots I already owned, and it felt like me right away. My sister is the bigger cat person in our family, so now she's eyeing mine."
Jill D., LancasterThese, against the coat you have been wearing
| The usual winter coat | These | |
|---|---|---|
| What it says about you | Nothing, deliberately | The two things you actually like |
| Where the warmth is | In the thickness, and you feel it by four | In the lining, sleeves included |
| The hood | Thin and unlined, or none at all | Roomy, fleece-lined, with a drawstring |
| Your hands | A bag, because the pockets are shallow | Two deep pockets, set in at the hip |
| Putting it on | It has opinions about what is underneath | It goes over what you have on |
| The loud one | Costs more than the plain one | The same as every other coat here |
A coat ought to be the one thing a woman owns that people recognise her by. Ours had quietly started doing the opposite, and this rail is what I did about it.
Why we’re clearing them now
These are $549.95 on the rail and I stand behind it — the lining alone is most of that. But the store turns twenty this year, and Pearl is at the counter beside me now, in the spot where she used to sit and do her homework. I wanted to mark it with something better than a sign in the window. So the whole rail goes out at $109.95. A fifth of what it was. Every coat, every size, the same.
I would rather these went out on fifty women this winter than sat in the back through another one. That is the whole of the arithmetic.
★★★★★4.8 out of 5 — from 3,524+ reviews
$549.95$109.95
20th Anniversary Sale — Save 80%
- Two subjects only — painted cats and painted flowers, over fifty coats
- Artwork that carries around the back as well as the front
- Brushed fleece lining, collar to hem and through the sleeves
- A roomy fleece-lined hood with a drawstring
- A full-length zipper, top to hem
- Two deep front pockets at the hip
- Falls past the hip, and never grips at the middle
- True to size · S through 4XL · every coat, one price
- Machine wash cool, do not tumble dry · Free UPS shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee
Every coat the same price · while sizes last
One more thing, and then I will let you go and look.
Nobody has ever asked a woman to justify a mug. She sees a cat on one in a shop, she likes it, she buys it, and it becomes the mug she reaches for every morning for the next nine years. No deliberating. No wondering whether it is a bit much at her age.
A coat is the only thing in the house she feels she has to explain to strangers before she is allowed to want it.
She does not.
Go and pick one the way you picked the mug.
— Vivian · Vivian & Pearl Newport
SEE THE FLORAL & CAT ART COATS — $109.95 →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.