Real stories · Four shirts, no ironing board

I solved Malcolm's entire wardrobe with one parcel — and retired the ironing board

Four decent shirts in one parcel, and an ironing board in retirement — that's what this order came to, and I'd call it the best bit of household admin I've done all year. Malcolm's shirt situation had reached the point of diplomacy: the collars had gone, the colours had faded, and the man himself would rather rewire the shed than go shirt shopping. So the same three tired shirts rotated for years, and I ironed them, for years.

Buying shirts FOR him always failed on choice — pick one, and it's somehow wrong.

Then I found the Darevianor from a British label called York Boutique — a pack of FOUR long-sleeved shirts in one go, in sensible colours that all work together: a navy, a green, a khaki, a lighter blue. One parcel, and the wardrobe question is simply answered for the season.

The clever part is the fabric. It's a soft, wrinkle-resistant weave — which is why a shirt comes off the airer, goes on a hanger, and looks pressed without the board ever leaving the cupboard. Malcolm wears one open over a t-shirt in the week and buttoned for Sunday, and both ways he looks — his word — 'sorted'.

Four matching-but-different shirts in a soft, wrinkle-resistant weave — which is why the wardrobe is solved and the ironing board is officially retired.

The pack was £39.95 in the sale — half the usual £80 — which works out under £10 a shirt, less than the dry cleaner charges to press four. I did check I could send them back if the fit was wrong — a fortnight, free delivery — but the sizes run honestly and it never came up.

His brother noticed at Sunday lunch, because his brother notices everything: 'new shirt?' Four, actually, I said. He asked me to write the name down — for HIS wife. That's how men shop, apparently: through us, at lunch.

If there's a man in your house whose shirt drawer needs an intervention, do have a look. The Darevianor pack is rated 4.6 out of 5 by more than 210 customers, comes in ten colour combinations, in sizes S to 5XL — and at under a tenner a shirt, the sensible colour packs go first.