Real stories · Retiring a 20-year-old jacket

My husband's old jacket was older than our grandchildren — this is the one that finally made him let it go

A jacket good enough to retire Malcolm's ancient one — that was the mission. My husband is 68 and has worn the same battered jacket for twenty years. It's older than our grandchildren. The lining went years ago, the cuffs are held together by loyalty, and whenever I suggested replacing it I was told, with great dignity, that it 'still has plenty of life in it'. It did not.

What I needed was a jacket so obviously better that even Malcolm couldn't argue with it.

Then I found the Dareviel from a British label called York Boutique — a casual leather-look jacket, and I chose the classic black, because a man who wears one jacket for twenty years is not a man you experiment on.

The trick is that it looks sharp without trying hard. The lines are clean — a neat little collar, tidy zips, no fuss — so it works over a t-shirt at the weekend and over a shirt at the pub quiz. It's made from a premium vegan leather that has the proper look and feel without the stiffness, which is why he can actually move in it: driving, reaching, gesturing expansively about the football. And the pockets, I'm told, are 'in the right places', which after twenty years with the old one is apparently high science.

Clean lines, a neat collar, and it moves with him instead of creaking. He looks ten years sharper and — his words — 'it's actually comfortable', which from Malcolm is a rave review.

He wore it to the pub the first Friday and came home very pleased with himself: two compliments and one accusation of 'having a new lease of life'. The old jacket has been moved — ceremonially — to the shed peg, for 'rough jobs'. That's as close to a goodbye as it will ever get.

It was £44.95 in the sale, down from £90 — and I'll be honest, I paused at that. Then I did the arithmetic on a jacket that gets worn daily for, on current evidence, two decades, and it suddenly looked like the cheapest thing I'd ever bought him. Half price, and I'd checked I could send it back if the fit was off — you can, within a fortnight, and the delivery's free. It comes in ten colours and in sizes from S right up to 7XL.

If you also live with a man whose jacket 'still has plenty of life in it', do treat yourself — and him — to a look. The Dareviel is rated 4.5 out of 5 by more than 210 buyers, it's £44.95 in the sale instead of £90 — half price — and the middle sizes always seem to go first.