Soft As Cotton, Said The Swing Tag. Then I Turned The Label Over.

A note from a reader who now reads the label before the price, and the small New Zealand boutique dress whose label says the one word she was looking for, with nothing in front of it.

In September, Anna and I spent a Saturday at the mall while Olive was at a birthday party, and in the second shop I found a summer dress I liked very much. Knee length, a soft orange, short sleeves, and a swing tag on a little ribbon that said, in curly writing, soft as cotton.

I am 64. Two years ago I would have taken it straight to the counter. Instead I did what I do now with everything. I found the side seam, turned the little white label over, and read it. 100% polyester.

The young woman at the counter saw me put it back on the rail and said, kindly enough, that nobody really reads those. Anna said, Mum does.

Why I read them

Last summer I owned a dress that said cotton touch on the swing tag. I wore it to a Christmas barbecue at a friend's place in Bethlehem on a muggy afternoon, and by the time the sausages were done it had stuck to the backs of my legs on the plastic chair. I peeled myself off that chair in front of eleven people. At home I read the label for the first time. Cotton touch, it turns out, means it touches a bit like cotton. That is all.

So now I read the label first. Soft as cotton, cotton feel, cotton touch, cotton look. I have read every one of them this year, on dresses that did not have a thread of cotton in them. The word was on the swing tag and nowhere in the fabric.

Then, on my phone one night, I saw a dress from a small New Zealand boutique called The Mount Coastal Boutique. It is called the Kwani, and the page said 100% cotton, plainly, with no soft as or touch in front of it. I ordered the black, and I will admit I was ready to be cross.

The parcel

It came by NZ Post in nine working days, tracked, wrapped in brown paper and string with a little handwritten card from Eleanor, who owns the boutique. I did not try it on in the hall. I sat on the bottom stair, found the side seam and turned the label over.

100% cotton.

That is the whole thing. No touch, no feel, no look. Just the fibre and the number.

How it arrived, on the doormat, before I had read a thing. I read the label on the stairs.

Cotton touch means it touches a bit like cotton. This label says 100% cotton, and nothing in front of it.

What real cotton does

I have worn it most weeks since, and the beige one that followed. Three things I noticed, written down because I wanted to be fair to it.

1. It breathes. On the first muggy Saturday of spring I wore it to plant out the tomatoes, an hour on my knees on the grass, and then to a friend's for lunch on her deck. It did not stick to me once. Not my back, not my legs, not the chair.

2. It is honest about the shape. A cocoon cut that falls from the chest and skims, short sleeves that cover the top of the arm, knee length on a woman of five foot five. It sits away from the middle and does not hold on.

3. It has real pockets. Two deep ones, one each side. A phone stands up in them. My keys live in the left one now.

It washes the way cotton should. On the line by ten, dry by lunch, softer than the week before, and Bruce, our rescue terrier cross, has decided the beige is his to lie on.

It comes in beige, black, orange and green, sizes S to 5XL, every size the same price. The orange is very close to the one with the fibbing swing tag, which pleased me more than it should have.

→ Read about the Kwani

Now, about the price

I want to be honest about the price, because a real cotton dress with real pockets for $96.95 made me read the label twice. I wrote down what I had seen this year.

• A cotton dress in a smart shop in town, $229
• The soft as cotton dress at the mall, $89, and no cotton
• The Mount Coastal Boutique Kwani, 100% cotton, $96.95

And underneath, the only thing I could think to write. …how??

What I'd tell you if we were friends

If we were on my back deck with a cuppa and you asked me whether you should order one, this is what I would say.

I would tell you to read the label on everything you buy for summer. Not the swing tag, the little white one in the side seam. If there is a soft as or a feel in front of the word, it is not the word.

I would tell you the Kwani label says 100% cotton, and the dress lives up to it.

I would tell you it runs true to size, S to 5XL, the same price in every size. When I asked whether to take a 2XL or a 3XL, a woman called Susan wrote back the same afternoon with the measurements, and she was right.

Free NZ Post delivery, usually seven to ten working days, and thirty days to change your mind. Buy two and the stack discount comes off. The page says the black and the green are almost sold out, which is why I am writing this now and not after Christmas.

If you have ever peeled yourself off a plastic chair at a summer barbecue, please do not wait for the next one.

Read the label. Then read this one.

— Wendy