Real stories · The dress with nothing that digs

Waistbands and I fell out years ago — this dress doesn't have one

A dress with nothing that digs — no waistband, no pinching, nothing to secretly undo after lunch — that's what this is, and I'd almost given up looking. I'm 67, and my clothes and I had reached an arrangement: they dug into my middle from noon onwards, and I pretended not to notice until I got home. Sunday lunches were an endurance sport.

What I wanted was something that stayed comfortable through pudding.

Then I found the Melvaria from a British label called York Boutique — a relaxed midi dress in deep navy with soft balloon sleeves, a layered hem, proper pockets, and a gently gathered seam instead of a waistband. I chose the navy; there's brown, red and green as well.

The gathered seam is the quiet genius. It gives the dress a shape — so it reads as a dress, not a tent — without a single thing that presses, digs or needs negotiating with after a roast — which is why Sunday lunch has stopped being an endurance sport. It's soft, it moves when I move, and the pockets take my glasses, my phone and the odd dog treat.

No waistband, no zip pressing, nothing that digs after lunch — just a gathered seam that gives it shape and pockets that hold the essentials — which is why it's become the Sunday default.

It was £29.95, half the usual £60 — less than one 'special occasion' waistband that spent an entire wedding punishing me. A fortnight to send it back and free delivery settled the last doubt.

It has since done two Sunday roasts — pudding included, nothing undone — a full afternoon of garden pottering and one long café catch-up, and my daughter, who has heard me complain about waistbands for a decade, looked me up and down and said 'you look lovely AND comfortable, which isn't fair'. Correct on both counts.

If your clothes also start digging at noon, do have a look. The Melvaria is rated 4.6 out of 5 by more than 230 women, it comes in four colours, in UK sizes 8/10 all the way to 26 — and at half price the navy goes first.