Real stories · The cardigan that doesn't sag

Every cardigan I've loved has ended up shapeless by November — this one holds its line

A cardigan with the manners of a jacket — that's what this is, and it's solved a problem I'd stopped noticing. I'm 67, and I love cardigans the way I love old friends: warmly, and with low expectations. Because every cardigan I've ever owned starts crisp in September and is a baggy, saggy, elbow-pouched apology by November.

What I wanted was cardigan comfort that could hold its shape past teatime.

Then I found the Selviannea from a British label called York Boutique — a grey-flecked button-up cut like a neat riding jacket, with a smart high collar, proper buttons and navy trim along the collar, cuffs and pockets. It comes in the one lovely colourway, and that's the one I have.

The cut is the whole difference. It's tailored and buttoned like a jacket, so it keeps its line all day — which is why it still looks intentional at four in the afternoon, when every other cardigan has slumped — yet on, it feels like a cardigan: soft, easy, nothing stiff. The high collar frames the face, and the navy trim makes the whole thing look considered. Over jeans it's smart-casual; over good trousers it passes anywhere.

Cut and buttoned like a proper jacket, with a high collar and neat navy trim — which is why it still looks intentional at four in the afternoon, when every other cardigan has given up.

I'll be honest: £64.95 made me sit down. It's the most I've spent this autumn, even at half the usual £130. Then I counted what it replaces — the everyday cardigan AND the smart jacket, one garment doing both jobs from now till spring — and checked I could send it back if we fell out: a fortnight, free delivery. We have not fallen out.

It has since done a church coffee morning, a bookshop trip and one café sit with a takeaway coffee, and at the café a woman I half-know asked if it was 'one of those Austrian jackets'. It is not. It is better: it's a cardigan, and nobody can tell.

If your cardigans also retire shapeless every November, do have a look. The Selviannea is rated 4.7 out of 5 by more than 190 women, it comes in the one grey-flecked colourway, in UK sizes 8/10 to 18/20 — and at half price it goes quickly.