Real stories · Glamour for ordinary Tuesdays

A Little Glamour For Ordinary Tuesdays

A soft brown cloud of a jacket that makes a trip to the greengrocer feel like an occasion — that's the Lioraine, and I have decided ordinary Tuesdays deserve it.

Glamour, in my wardrobe, has always been strictly rationed: saved for weddings, brought out apologetically, returned to the wardrobe before it got ideas. Winter coats in particular were chosen the way one chooses guttering — dark, practical, invisible.

The Lioraine, from York Boutique — a British label I order from often — broke the ration. It's a faux fur jacket in the deepest chocolate brown, unbelievably soft, with a neat collar and a simple zip. Short enough to be easy, plush enough to feel like an event. I put it on over a black roll-neck and trousers and looked, according to Malcolm, 'like someone off the television'. He meant it well.

And it's genuinely warm — the plush pile traps the heat the way a good fur should, which is why it does the school-run-weather mornings as happily as the dinner dates. It's soft against the neck and hands in a way that makes you keep touching your own sleeves, and it dresses up or down without being told: jeans underneath, done; the black dress underneath, very done.

The greengrocer said 'very fancy today' — and honestly, that made the whole Tuesday.

It's listed at £80 and sells for £39.95 because York Boutique sell direct with no middleman. I'll admit I did check before ordering that I could send it back if it looked cheap in person — the great risk with faux fur — you can, within a fortnight, and the delivery's free. In person the pile is dense and even, which is the whole difference between 'fabulous' and 'fancy dress'.

It comes in six colours in sizes UK 8/10 to 18/20 — mine is the brown, which goes with everything sensible I own. If your glamour has been sitting in the wardrobe waiting for permission: it's Tuesday. That'll do.