A Letter From Vivian: The Mira
A letter from the founder
A quilt is the only thing in a house that nobody ever throws away.
On the six things that made me choose the Mira, how it compares to the one already in your drawer, 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.
Think for a moment about what actually survives in a house. Sweatshirts wear thin and go into a bag for the charity shop. Coats get replaced. But the quilt that was on the back of your aunt's sofa is still on the back of somebody's sofa, and it has moved house at least twice since she died.
Nobody sits down and decides to keep a quilt. It simply never becomes the thing you throw away. And I have come to believe the reason is that you can see the hours in it. Somebody worked that, line by line, and you cannot look at it and not know.
Which is an odd thing to say about clothing, because almost nothing we wear now has a single visible hour in it anywhere.
I have kept a shop on a harbour for two decades, and I have been offered a great deal of clothing that claims to be about the sea. Almost all of it is a small embroidered anchor on a navy stripe. A gesture at the idea, without ever showing you the thing itself. And the two kinds never change: the plain one, which is comfortable and completely silent, and the themed one, which is really a costume — rope and anchors and a word across the chest. No woman I know wants to stand in a checkout line explaining her sweatshirt.
What nobody makes is the third thing. An actual picture, with the hours showing, on a garment you would genuinely pull on to go and do the shopping.
I never accepted that a woman had to choose.
The Mira is my answer. It is a sunrise over open water, sewn rather than printed, and the waves carry on down both sleeves. There were six things I would not do without.
Every line of it is stitched
This is where the hours are. The sun is worked in concentric rings that stand up off the surface. The clouds are outlined in stitch. The waves curl into spirals, each one sewn round on itself, and the water behind them is quilted in long lines that run the way water runs. None of it is a photograph of a quilt printed onto fleece, which is what nearly every colourful sweatshirt turns out to be once it is in your hands. It is also where the warmth comes from, because quilting holds air — which is how a thing can be warm without being thick.
“The print reminds me of the quilts my aunt used to keep around her house. That's what drew me to it. Looks lovely with plain jeans, and the fabric feels soft.”
Donna E., Lexington“I do a lot of sewing, so a patchwork print will usually catch my attention. This one is fun without needing any extra fuss. A comfortable top for an ordinary day, which is mostly what I shop for now.”
Marsha P., Fort WayneThe colours are in an order, which is why it is not chaos
This is the decision I would have missed twenty years ago, and it is the one that makes the whole thing wearable. Look at where the colours sit. Everything above the horizon is warm — the yellows, the oranges, the reds and pinks of a sky at dawn. Everything below it is cool — the greens, the teals, the purples of water. Nothing wanders across that line. So although there is a great deal of colour in this garment, it is not scattered; it is doing what a sky does above what a sea does, and the eye reads it as one thing rather than as noise. That is the entire difference between a woman wearing a scene and a woman wearing a riot, and it is why it sits perfectly happily over plain jeans or black trousers.
“The colors are the whole reason I ordered it. Put it on with black pants and you're pretty much done.”
Audrey C., KnoxvilleThe hood is doing a job, not decorating the back
Half the hoods sold on garments like this are a flat panel that exists so the word can appear on the label. This one is shaped and quilted right through like the rest of the garment rather than left as a single thin layer, so it holds its form instead of collapsing between your shoulders. The picture carries over it, too — the sky does not stop at the neckline. And there is a drawstring. On this coast the wind arrives without any warning at all, and a hood that goes up in three seconds is worth a great deal more than a scarf you have to go back inside for.
“Bought the Mira for a weekend at my daughter's place. I always bring something cozy because she keeps her house cooler than mine. Ended up wearing this for most of Saturday, including our trip to the farmers market. Nice to have the hood when we stepped outside.”
Eileen B., LancasterIt is cut for sitting down, not only for standing up
Almost every garment is judged standing in front of a mirror, and then worn sitting in a chair for most of its life. The Mira hangs from the shoulder rather than resting on the body, so there is room through the middle when you sit and nothing to keep pulling away from yourself. And the sleeves run the whole way to the wrist, because the forearm is the first place a woman feels the cold and very often the last place she wants to be looked at.
“Happy with the loose fit. I don't like tops that hug my middle, especially when I'm sitting down. This gives me a little breathing room.”
Jeanette H., Grand RapidsIt crosses the doorstep without a change of clothes
Most women keep two wardrobes without ever having decided to: the things worn in the house, and the things put on before leaving it. The whole afternoon has a small tax on it, which is the change of clothes in between. This one is on the right side of that line in both directions — comfortable enough to spend a morning in and good enough to keep on for the shop. That is the quiet test a garment either passes or it does not, and it has nothing to do with how it looks on a hanger.
“Roomy and warm. Wore it around the house yesterday and didn't bother changing before heading out for groceries.”
Maxine T., Spokane“I wasn't sure a hoodie was really my style anymore, but I liked the pattern enough to try this one. I've worn it twice already, once to book club and once for breakfast with my neighbor. It feels casual in a way I'm comfortable with.”
Priscilla W., RichmondNine sizes, and the one thing to know about washing it
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 anybody else, why so many shops stop at large and then act puzzled about who stopped coming in. And I would rather tell you the care here than let you find it on a label: it goes in the machine on a cool wash, and then it wants to be hung up rather than tumbled. Quilting and a tumble dryer are not friends. Air-dry it and it will look like this in fifteen years, which is the entire reason I am making a point of it.
The Mira, against the one already in the drawer
| The usual sweatshirt | The Mira | |
|---|---|---|
| The front | A logo, a slogan, or nothing | A sunrise over water, worked in stitch |
| The hours | None that you can see | Visible in every line of it |
| Warmth | Flat fleece, warm because it is thick | Sewn quilting that holds air |
| Colour | Scattered, or none at all | Warm above the horizon, cool below it |
| Sitting down | Rides up, or hugs the middle | Hangs from the shoulder, room where you need it |
| Sizing | Stops at XL, if you are lucky | XS through 5XL, one price |
I refuse to accept that the only way a woman is allowed to mention the sea is a half-inch anchor over her heart. That is the whole reason the Mira is in the store.
Why we’re clearing it now
The Mira hangs at $299.95 on the rail. Quilting a whole garment line by line takes as long as it takes and there is no clever way around that, which is what the number is paying for. I am not going to stand here and pretend otherwise. But the store turns twenty this year, and my daughter Pearl is beside me at the counter most days now, which in 2006 I would not have dared to plan on. We wanted to mark it by handing something back to the women who kept our door open, so the Mira is going out at a fifth of that.
Here is the honest arithmetic behind it. A woman buys one of these, wears it on a Saturday, and somebody stops her about it before lunchtime. That has happened often enough in this store that I no longer treat it as luck. I would rather she found it out at $59.95.
★★★★★4.8 out of 5 — from 3,524+ reviews
$299.95$59.95
20th Anniversary Sale — Save 80%
- A sunrise over open water, sewn rather than printed
- Waves curling down both sleeves
- Warm above the horizon, cool below it
- A deep quilted hood with a drawstring
- Hangs from the shoulder, easy across the middle
- Machine wash cool · do not tumble dry · air dry
- XS, S, M, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL, 5XL · every size the same price
- Free UPS shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee
Every size the same price · while sizes last
There is a thing women do in this store that I have never once seen a man do. She holds a bright thing up against herself, looks in the mirror, and then looks past her own shoulder to see who else is in the room.
She is not checking whether it suits her. She is checking whether she will have to defend it.
She will not. Nobody asks a woman to justify a sunrise.
And in fifteen years, when most of what is hanging in your wardrobe today has gone into a bag for the charity shop, this is the one that will still be folded over the arm of a chair.
Go find your size.
— Vivian · Vivian & Pearl Newport
SEE THE MIRA — $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.