A letter from a client

AT SIXTY-EIGHT, TOURISTS KEPT ASKING ME FOR DIRECTIONS. IT TOOK ME FIVE YEARS TO WORK OUT IT WAS THE JACKET

Kate Morrison

Queenstown ·  September 2026

I’d like to say, in my own defence, that I have perfectly nice clothes. Blouses, good jeans, a turquoise necklace I’ve been saving for something since 1994. What I also own, in the way that counts, is one navy rain jacket, bought very sensibly in 2021. For five years, everything nice I put on has gone out the door underneath it. 

 

I’m 68, I’m not a writer, and I hadn’t noticed what that added up to until a woman stopped me on the lakefront one afternoon and asked which bus went to Glenorchy. That happens in Queenstown. But then she asked whether the tour left from here, and whether I was the guide. That was the third time that summer. Navy rain jacket, sensible shoes, a lanyard of keys round my wrist. I looked like I worked for the gondola..

 

Here is how the rain jacket takes over. A Queenstown spring wants a layer. Not a winter coat, a layer, because it’s seventeen degrees and glorious at eleven o’clock, and by three the wind comes off the lake and the clouds come over the Remarkables, and you never quite know which way it’ll go. 

 

And the only layer I owned was the rain jacket, because in this town a layer has to cope with anything. It’s waterproof, it’s windproof, it’s sensible. And I buy sensible. So the nice blouse went on, the rain jacket went over it, and the blouse stayed a secret between me and the hall mirror. Five years of that.

The blouse, and shiver by half past three. Or the rain jacket, and look like the tour guide. I was the tour guide for five years.

Nobody decides to look like the tour guide. It happens one sensible morning at a time, until a stranger asks you what time the boat leaves.

the morning it arrived. retro olive green, floral embroidery, a little ruffle down the front, two rows of buttons. i thought, that is not a practical layer. i was wrong.

Then Fiona came home

My daughter Fiona came up from Dunedin for a long weekend in September. She came through the arrivals gate in an olive-green jacket with flowers embroidered right across it and a soft ruffle down the front, over a plain white T-shirt and jeans. 

 

That afternoon we walked the lakefront to Sunshine Bay and back, and that evening we went straight out to dinner in town. She didn’t change. Same T-shirt, same jeans, same jacket. On the walk she looked like she belonged outdoors. At dinner she looked like she’d made an effort. I sat across the table from her in a nice blouse I’d changed into specially, with my rain jacket over the back of the chair, and I realised Fiona’s jacket was doing all of it.

It’s called the Florence, from Eleanor & James, a small boutique over in Coromandel that makes clothes for women our age. I ordered it that night, after Fiona had gone to bed, fully expecting to send it back.

 

It didn’t go back. The rain jacket is on the hook by the back door now, for actual rain. Which is what it was for.

See The Jacket Collection

What happened in Arrowtown

The first proper outing was coffee in Arrowtown with my walking group. I wore it over a plain white T-shirt and jeans, which is the least interesting outfit I own, and I finally put on the turquoise necklace.

Three different women asked me where it was from before the flat whites arrived. And on the way back to the car, a woman with a camera round her neck stopped me on Buckingham Street. For the first time in five years, she didn’t ask for directions. She wanted to know where I’d got my jacket. I’ve decided that counts as a promotion.

Here’s why it works, as far as I can tell. It’s the layer and the outfit at once. The flowers are embroidered in the same olive as the jacket, so you get all that pattern and texture without it ever shouting. Up close it looks almost hand-done. From across the room it just looks lovely. The ruffles along the front, the cuffs and the hem soften what would otherwise be quite a practical shape, so a plain T-shirt underneath suddenly looks deliberate. The collar frames your face, the two rows of buttons give it a bit of structure, and I wear it open, which is how it hangs best. It comes to the hip, so it covers what I want covered. And olive turns out to be a neutral. It goes with denim, with white, with navy, with every colour in my wardrobe I’d stopped wearing.

 

It’s been out seven times in twelve days. Arrowtown, lunch with Graham, church, the walking group, the library, and the garden centre twice, because I went back for seedlings I didn’t need.

on the wardrobe door, where i can see it. the raincoat does not get the door.

Three things worth knowing

One. The layer is the outfit now. A plain T-shirt and jeans walk out of the house looking like I meant it, because the jacket does all the work. That’s the whole trick, and the rain jacket never learned it.

Two. It goes with more than you’d think. I’d assumed something this pretty would need a special outfit. It doesn’t. Jeans and a white T-shirt is my favourite. Over a plain dress works just as well. And it finally gave that turquoise necklace somewhere to go.

Three. Honest sizes, and plenty of them. From an XS right up to a 3XL, with the same easy shape the whole way through. There is a whole rail of these jackets at the boutique besides this one. I have my eye on a red paisley next. Fiona’s been told she’s not allowed to borrow mine.

Leaning against the armchair, which is as far as it gets from me.

ABOUT THE PRICE

I am careful with money and I will not pretend otherwise, so I will tell you the price was the bit that made me suspicious.

The Florence is $124.95 NZD. It was $310.00 NZD.

 

My first thought was that there had to be a catch, because a jacket that does this much work in a department store is nearer the three hundred than the hundred twenty-five.


There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and they run a spring sale to shift the season’s stock before it turns.

 

I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I told my daughter about it. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people, so I read on. One woman had written, “Threw it on over a plain tee and got three compliments at lunch. Light enough to keep on indoors and it washes in the machine.” That was the one that decided it for me.

See The Jacket Collection

If you were sitting at my kitchen bench

If you were sitting at my kitchen bench with the jug on and you asked me, this is what I’d say.

 

If everything nice you own goes out the door underneath the same sensible jacket, you haven’t stopped making an effort. You’ve just been dressing for the weather forecast instead of for yourself. This is a layer that shows the effort instead of hiding it.

 

Two practical things. The spring sale is on now, and the middle sizes go first. And once the spring stock has gone, that’s it until next year.

 

The spring sale is ending tonight, it comes in six colours, and the middle sizes in the nicest shades are already going.

The rain jacket is on the hook for actual rain. And nobody has asked me the way to the gondola since.

Well, once. But she asked about the jacket first.

Kate

Florence | Boho Ruffled Utility Jacket with Floral Embroidery

4.2/5 Based on 300+ reviews

$310.00 NZD

$124.95 NZD
  • The layer that is the outfit, worn open and easy
  • Olive-green utility jacket with tone-on-tone floral embroidery
  • Soft ruffles along the front edges, cuffs and hem
  • Soft, light, and machine washable
  • Hip length, lovely worn open over a tee and jeans
  • Retro Green, XS to 3XL
  • Free delivery with NZ Post

See The Jacket Collection

Spring sale ending soon. Middle sizes go fast.

Kate Morrison is 68 and lives in Queenstown with her husband Graham. She is not a fashion writer.

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