A Letter From Vivian: The Lila
A letter from the founder
From now until March you will be putting the lights on at four in the afternoon. And that is exactly when we all agree to stop wearing colour.
On the six things that made me choose the Lila, why the brightest thing a woman owns should come out in October rather than May, and why it is $59.95 for our twentieth year.
There is a week in September when the whole town changes colour, and nobody announces it.
The windows go to camel and charcoal. The rails go dark. And for the next six months every woman who comes through my door is dressed in roughly the same four colours as the pavement outside.
I understand how it happens. Dark clothes feel like the sensible answer to a dark season. They match the weather, they do not show the mud, and there is something in all of us that wants to batten down a bit once the evenings start closing in.
But think about what we are actually agreeing to. From now until March the sun comes up late, goes in at four, and spends most of the day behind something grey. And that is the precise moment we decide to take all the colour out of what we wear.
We dim ourselves exactly when the light goes.
It is the wrong way round, and it has always seemed the wrong way round to me. The brightest thing a woman owns should come out in October. May can look after itself.
So when this one came across the counter I did not need much persuading, because it is a sunrise. A great gold sun up on the shoulder, and rays running out from it across the body and down both sleeves in every colour there is.
There were six things I would not do without.
The sun sits at the shoulder, which is where colour does its work
This is the part of the design I would not have thought to ask for and would now not give up. The sun is not centred on the chest and it is not down at the hem — it is up on the shoulder, with the rays fanning out and down from there. Which means the brightest thing in the whole garment is sitting a few inches from your face.
That matters more than it sounds. Colour low on a garment is colour you see in the mirror and nobody else really registers. Colour up by the collar is the colour that lands on you when somebody is talking to you — it is why a scarf changes a face and a skirt does not. Whoever placed this sun knew that.
"The sun-inspired pattern is what caught my attention. Wore it with my regular jeans and felt a little more dressed up without doing anything extra."
Laura M., RochesterNo hood, no zip, nothing to fasten
Almost everything cheerful on offer this time of year is an outer layer. A hoodie, a zip-through, something you put over your clothes — which means the colour only exists while you are cold, and it comes off the moment you sit down somewhere warm.
This is a sweater. It has no hood to bunch up under a coat collar, no cords hanging down the front, no zip to sit on when you lean back. You put it on in the morning the way you put on a jumper, and it is simply what you are wearing for the day. I have sold a great many hooded things this autumn and I will sell a great many more, but a hood is a thing you have to want, and a surprising number of women do not want one.
"I like long sleeves, but I don't always want a heavy, hot sweater. This feels soft and breathable, which suits me well. Been reaching for it on days when I'm mostly indoors."
Maura K., RichmondBreathable, which is the word nobody checks
Warm is easy. Any thick sweater is warm. What is genuinely hard to find is a sweater that is still comfortable at hour three with the heating on — and from October to March that is most of the hours there are.
The usual bright sweater this time of year is heavy acrylic. It is lovely for twenty minutes and faintly clammy by the end of an afternoon, and you end up pushing the sleeves up and wishing you had worn something else. This one is soft and it breathes, which is why it keeps getting put on for ordinary days at home rather than being saved for going out in the cold.
"Soft fabric and a comfortable, relaxed fit. I've worn it while working on a puzzle for most of an afternoon. No fussing with it."
Carolyn B., EugeneRelaxed, long-sleeved, and it goes untucked
It is cut relaxed and it hangs straight, so there is nothing drawn in at the middle and nothing that needs pulling down over a waistband every time you stand up. It is meant to be worn untucked over whatever trousers or jeans are already on.
And the sleeves go the whole way to the wrist. I will keep saying this until makers stop doing it: the forearm is the first place a woman feels the cold and very often the last place she wants looked at, and a three-quarter sleeve fails her twice at once.
"The relaxed shape is a good fit for the way I dress now. Looks nice untucked with plain pants, and I can move around comfortably."
Gail T., OlympiaAnd then there is the small matter of the photographs
Between now and the new year you will be in more photographs than in the whole rest of the year put together. The table on Thanksgiving. The tree. Somebody's grandchildren. The one that ends up on the card.
And I will tell you what happens to a woman in a grey sweater in a group photograph, because I have twenty years of them on the wall behind my counter. She goes back a row. Not literally — she stands where she stood — but your eye does not find her, and when that photograph gets looked at in fifteen years' time it still will not.
I am not saying buy a sweater to be seen. I am saying that the women who are easy to find in old photographs are almost never the best dressed ones. They are the ones wearing something they liked.
"I almost chose another plain sweater, then decided to get the one I actually kept looking at. Glad I did. The sun design has a playful feel that I really enjoy. Wore it to our neighborhood get-together and felt completely myself in it."
Paulette R., Fort Collins"Pretty design, especially if you enjoy color. I keep everything else simple when I wear it."
Virginia S., OmahaSeven sizes, one price, and it washes at home
S through 4XL, and every size the same price — I have never understood charging a woman more for the same sweater because there is more of her in it.
It goes in the machine on a cool wash. Do not tumble dry it; hang it up and let it dry on its own, and it will come back out looking like this. That is the whole of the care instruction, and it is the reason a thing like this stays at the front of the closet instead of migrating to the back the way the dry-clean things do.
"I brought the Lila along for a weekend visiting an old friend. We spent Saturday browsing antique shops and stopped for lunch afterward. I was comfortable the whole time, and she asked where I'd found such a cheerful sweater. Nice to have something different from my usual stripes."
Jo N., LexingtonThe Lila, against what you have been reaching for since September
| The usual October sweater | The Lila | |
|---|---|---|
| On a grey day | It matches the day | It argues with it |
| Where the colour sits | Nowhere in particular | At the shoulder, near your face |
| Hood and fastenings | A hood that bunches under a coat | None at all — it is a sweater |
| Indoors, hour three | Warm, and then rather too warm | Soft, and it breathes |
| The shape | You keep pulling it down | Relaxed, straight, worn untucked |
| Sizing | Stops at XL, if you are lucky | S through 4XL, one price |
Six months is a long time to spend dressed like the weather. That is the whole reason this one is on the rail.
Why we’re clearing them now
The Lila came in at $299.95. 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 after school. I wanted to mark it with something better than a sign in the window — so it goes out at $59.95, a fifth of what it was, every size the same.
And I would rather it went out now, at the start of the dark half of the year, than sat in the back until March when nobody needs it. That is the whole of the arithmetic.
★★★★★4.8 out of 5 — from 3,524+ reviews
$299.95$59.95
20th Anniversary Sale — Save 80%
- A gold sun at the shoulder, with rays in every colour running across the body and sleeves
- No hood, no zip, nothing to fasten — a sweater, not a layer
- Soft and breathable, so it is still comfortable at hour three
- Long sleeves the whole way to the wrist
- Cut relaxed, hangs straight, meant to be worn untucked
- True to size · S through 4XL · every size, one price
- Machine wash cool · do not tumble dry · hang to dry
- Free UPS shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee
Every size the same price · while sizes last
One last thing, and then I will let you go and look.
There is a particular morning, usually somewhere in late January, when a woman gets dressed in the dark because it is still dark, and catches sight of herself in the hall mirror on the way out. Coat, scarf, sweater, boots. All one colour. And that colour is the sky.
Nobody will say anything. She will have a perfectly good day. But something very small goes out of a person in that moment, and it goes out again the next morning, and by February she could not tell you when it started.
A sweater does not fix January. I am not going to pretend otherwise.
But it does mean there is one drawer in the house with the sun in it, and on the mornings you need it you will know exactly where to find it.
Go and put the sun somewhere you can reach it.
— Vivian · Vivian & Pearl Newport
SEE THE LILA — $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.