I Very Nearly Did Not Click. Here Is Every Reason, And What Actually Happened.

A note from a reader who had been caught by online clothes before, wrote six reasons not to order on the back of a library receipt, and the small New Zealand boutique top that answered every one of them.

I very nearly did not click. I want to start there, because if you are reading this you may be sitting where I was, thumb hovering, already half sure it will end the way it usually does.

It was a wet Tuesday in September and I was in the car outside the library in Greerton, rain on the roof, waiting for Graeme to come back with his holds. I was scrolling, the way you do, and a top came up from a small New Zealand boutique called The Mount Coastal Boutique. A linen top with one wooden button, in six colours. It looked lovely. That was exactly the problem.

I am 64, and I have been caught before. Last winter I ordered a dress from a shop with a lovely name and lovely photos. It took four and a half weeks to come. It was a slippery synthetic, nothing like the picture, and when I wrote to ask about sending it back, the emails simply stopped. I told my whole book club. I still have that dress, folded in the bottom of the wardrobe, as a reminder.

So I sat in the car with the rain coming down and did something I had never done before. I wrote down every reason not to click, on the back of a library receipt. There were six. I am going to tell you each one, and what actually happened, because I would have wanted someone to tell me.

1. It will look nothing like the photo

This was the big one. The photos showed a loose top with a soft V, one button at the base, sleeves to just below the elbow with a little tab to hold them rolled. When it came, that is what it was. The same top. The button is a real wooden one, the V sits about a hand's width below the collarbone, and the hem curves so it sits nicely over trousers.

The coral, the second one I ordered. It looks the way it looked on the screen in the car.

2. It will say linen and be something else

I have read a great many labels. Linen look. Linen touch. Tops named after a fabric they do not contain. The product page said real 100% linen, in plain words, and I did not believe it for a minute. When the parcel came I did not try it on first. I found the side seam and turned the little white label over. 100% linen. It breathes like linen, it creases like linen, and every wash it is a bit softer than the time before.

3. It will not fit

I am a 16 on top and a 14 underneath, and online sizing has never once been kind to me. So before I ordered I sent an email, half expecting nothing back. A woman called Susan answered the same afternoon. She told me plainly that the Zamma runs a touch small through the chest, and that most women go up one size. She also said that if I got it wrong, she would swap the size before it went out. I went up one. She was right.

I wrote six reasons not to click on the back of a library receipt. Not one of them came true.

4. It will take weeks, if it comes at all

Free NZ Post delivery, usually seven to ten working days, and they mean it. Mine came in eight, tracked the whole way, with a little handwritten card tucked inside. I checked the tracking far more often than a grown woman should.

5. I will be stuck with it

Thirty days to change your mind. I read that line three times before I believed it, because after the dress in the wardrobe I wanted to know exactly what would happen if it went wrong. As it turned out, I never needed it. But knowing it was there is the reason I pressed the button in the end.

6. The price is too good to be true

The Zamma was $68.95, down from $154.95. Real linen at that price made me more suspicious, not less. So I wrote down what I had seen this year.

• A linen shirt in a smart shop in town, $249
• A linen shirt at a chain store at the mall, $149
• The Mount Coastal Boutique Zamma, 100% linen on the label, $68.95

It is the same price in every size, S to 5XL, and the cut is the same in a 22 as in a 12. I have come to think that says something about a shop.

→ Read about the Zamma

What happened when I finally wore it

The first proper outing was Labour Weekend, at a friend's bach at Waihi Beach. It went muggy by eleven, the close, still kind of day when everything you own sticks to you by lunch. I wore the white with my grey trousers and sat on the deck most of the afternoon, and I did not once pull it away from my back between my finger and thumb.

It skims. The body falls from the shoulders and sits away from the middle, so it does not hold on anywhere. The sleeves cover the tops of the arms without trapping any warmth. It is the top I reach for now when I do not want to think about what to wear.

The colours

It comes in six. Coral red, green, navy, white, beige and black. I started with the white, because I wanted to test it properly. The coral came next, because after a year of black and grey I decided I had earned some colour. The green is the one I have my eye on now. When I last looked, the white, the beige and the green were all marked almost sold out, so if one of those is yours, I would not leave it too long.

What I'd tell you if we were friends

If we were on my deck with a cuppa and you told me you nearly did not click either, this is what I would say.

I would tell you that being careful is sensible. Read the label, check the delivery time, and ask your question before you buy. And I would tell you that this is one of the rare times all of that came back the right way. The photo was the top. The label said 100% linen and meant it. Susan answered the same afternoon. It came in eight working days. And the thirty days were there if I needed them.

Go up one size from your usual. Buy two and the stack discount comes off, 15% on two and up to 30% the more you add, which is how I ended up with the coral. Every size is $68.95.

And if you are sitting in a car somewhere with the rain on the roof and your thumb hovering, I would tell you that I nearly did not click either. I am very glad I did.

I kept the library receipt.

— Wendy