A Letter From Vivian: The Leila
A letter from the founder
Every warm thing with a hood on it goes over your head. Which is fine, unless you have already done your hair.
On the six things that made me choose the Leila, why it buttons instead of pulling on, 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 a small thing that turns out not to be small at all. It is half past eight, you are dressed, your hair is done, and it has gone cool enough that you want something over your shoulders. And every warm thing in that closet with a hood on it goes on over your head.
So you own the two that are offered. There is the cardigan, which buttons and behaves and which is beige, or oatmeal, or gray, because that is what a cardigan apparently has to be. And there is the hooded thing, which is warm and has the hood you actually wanted, and which you pull on and then stand in front of the mirror afterward putting yourself back together.
Nobody makes the third one. Something that buttons like a cardigan, has a hood like the other, and is worth looking at.
I never accepted that a woman had to choose.
The Leila is my answer. A soft knit cardigan with wooden buttons down the front and a hood on the back, printed all over like a piece of stitched folk art. There were six things I would not do without.
It buttons, so nothing goes over your head
This is the one that decided it, and it is the one nobody thinks to ask about. A hooded garment almost always pulls on, which means that at half past eight it takes your hair with it, and at two in the afternoon when the sun comes round you have to do the whole thing again in reverse. Buttons solve both ends of that day. It goes on like a cardigan, comes off like a cardigan, and you can undo it two buttons at a time as the afternoon warms up rather than making a decision about the entire garment.
“I appreciate not having to pull this over my head. The wooden buttons make it much easier when I’ve already done my hair.”
Bernadette C., MadisonA hood, so there is no scarf to find
The hood is attached and soft, and it does the job a scarf would otherwise have to do — which means one fewer thing to own, to remember, and to leave on the back of a chair somewhere. On a September morning the wind is the whole problem. Not the temperature, the wind, and specifically the back of your neck. A hood answers that in one movement and asks nothing of you the rest of the day, because when it is down it simply sits there.
“The hood is just enough for a breezy morning, and I like that I can button it open again once the day warms up.”
Maxine R., PortsmouthThe print is the point, not a decoration
A cardigan is the one garment in the closet that has been quietly agreed to be beige. Nobody decided that; it simply happened, and now a woman who wants a warm layer is offered oatmeal, gray or navy and told that is the sensible end of the rail. The Leila is covered edge to edge in an artist’s print — small blocks and marks that read like stitched folk art rather than a pattern stamped on cloth. It is the same warmth. It is simply not apologizing for itself.
“People notice this one. I’ve had more compliments on the artistic print than on any plain cardigan in my closet.”
Yolanda S., CharlestonSoft, with no scratch in it anywhere
Here is the trap with anything brightly colored and knitted, and I have been caught by it myself: the bright ones are so often thin and a little itchy, because the color went into the yarn and the quality did not. Then it lives in a drawer. This one is a soft, warm knit with no scratch at all, which matters most at the wrist and the neck — the two places you find out within about ten minutes whether you are going to wear something or merely own it.
“I wore mine through a cool afternoon of errands and never had that itchy feeling I sometimes get from sweaters.”
Marianne D., PortlandCut relaxed, and still neat
Relaxed and easy through the body, which means room where you want room and nothing pulling when you sit down to lunch. But relaxed is not the same as shapeless, and the test is whether it still looks deliberate over a plain white tee — whether it reads as a layer you chose or as something you threw on. This one holds its line. That is a pattern-cutting decision and it costs a maker more than the alternative.
“The relaxed fit gives me comfortable room through the middle and still looks neat over a simple white tee.”
Eleanor P., RichmondSix designs, and S all the way through 5XL
There are six prints, and they are genuinely different from one another rather than the same drawing in six colorways — the blue is a dense patchwork of small blocks, and the others go somewhere else entirely. Every one of them runs S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL and 5XL, and every single size is the same price. A cardigan with an artist’s print on it is exactly the sort of thing that gets made in three sizes and quietly withheld from everybody else. Not here.
“I started with the colorful patchwork and went back for another print. They feel completely different even though the fit is the same.”
Constance H., Greenville“The blue patchwork print has so many colors that it works with nearly every pair of pants I own.”
Claudia M., AshevilleThe Leila, against the cardigan and the hoodie
| The two you already own | The Leila | |
|---|---|---|
| Getting it on | Over your head, and over your hair | Buttons up the front |
| At the neck | Open — go and find a scarf | An attached, soft hood |
| The look of it | Beige, oatmeal or gray | An all-over artist’s print |
| The feel | Bright ones run thin and itchy | Soft knit, no scratch |
| Fit | Shapeless, and called relaxed | Relaxed, and still neat |
| Sizing | Stops at XL, if you are lucky | S through 5XL, one price |
I refuse to accept that the warm thing in a woman’s closet has to be the dull one. That is the whole reason the Leila is in the shop.
Why we’re clearing them now
The Leila came in at $174.95. An all-over print of this kind has to be worked across the whole garment rather than placed on a front panel, and that is what the original number was paying for. But the shop turns twenty this year, and my daughter Pearl is beside me at the counter most days now, which is not something I let myself count on in 2006. We wanted to mark it by handing something back to the women who kept our door open, so it is going out at a third of what it was.
And I would rather do it this week than in six. This is a September garment before it is anything else — it is for the mornings that are cool at eight and perfectly lovely by noon. Buy it in the middle of October and you are already reaching past it for a coat.
★★★★★4.8 out of 5 — from 3,524+ reviews
$174.95$59.95
20th Anniversary Sale — Save 66%
- Wooden buttons up the front — nothing over your head
- An attached, soft hood
- An all-over artist’s print, edge to edge
- Soft, warm knit with no scratch in it
- Relaxed and easy, and still neat over a tee
- Six designs · sizes S through 5XL · one price
- Free UPS shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee
Every print and size the same price · while sizes last
Twenty years behind this counter and I can tell you what a woman is really asking when she picks up a cardigan and turns it over in her hands.
She is not asking whether it is warm. She can see that it is warm. She is asking whether it is allowed to be interesting, at her age, on a Tuesday, in her own town.
It is. Go and pick your print.
— Vivian · Vivian & Pearl Newport
SEE THE LEILA — $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.