Real stories · Warm enough, elegant enough

Every winter do, the same choice: the pretty dress or staying warm — this one does both

Warm enough for a church hall, elegant enough for a party — that's the whole review of this dress. I'm 67, and for years every winter invitation has offered me the same two options: the pretty dress with goosebumps and a strategic cardigan, or something warm that made me feel like I'd come straight from the allotment.

What I wanted was one dress where warm and elegant weren't opposites.

Then I found the Seraviellea from a British label called York Boutique — a long-sleeved midi dress in deep green with a soft tonal leaf print. Across a room it reads as an elegant plain dark dress; up close there's the print, quietly doing something lovely. I chose the green; there's burgundy, blue, black, purple and brown as well.

The cut does the work. It's tailored to skim rather than cling, and it smooths the middle — which is why it feels like a proper occasion dress rather than a warm compromise — while the long sleeves and the sensible winter weight mean the cardigan stays at home. With black tights and boots it does daytime; with the good shoes it does an evening.

Proper long sleeves, a winter weight, and a cut that skims and smooths the middle — elegant across the room, warm all evening, and not a cardigan in sight.

It was £34.95, half the usual £70 — less than I've spent on cardigans bought to rescue cold dresses. I did check I could send it back if it didn't suit — a fortnight, free delivery — which rather settled it.

It has since done one birthday dinner and one parish quiz night, both warm from coat-off to coat-on, and at the dinner my daughter said I looked 'properly elegant' and then, suspiciously, 'aren't you cold?' No. For once, no.

If you also dress for winter dos with one eye on the radiator, do have a look. The Seraviellea is rated 4.7 out of 5 by more than 230 women, it comes in six colours, in UK sizes 8 to 18 — and at half price the green and the burgundy go first.