At 63 I bought a sweater with little hearts on it, and I have no regrets

Soft waffle knit in painted pastel stripes — light enough to keep on indoors, cut loose enough to sit down in without a second thought.

By Sandra Thompson · Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

Posted August 2026 · 6 min read

I am 63, and if you had opened my closet last winter you would have found beige, navy, gray, and one black cardigan I keep for funerals. Sensible. Warm enough. And so quiet that I could walk the whole length of the grocery store and not a soul would look up, which after a while stops feeling like modesty and starts feeling like disappearing.

I had started to feel a little invisible in my own clothes.

It was my daughter Sarah, up in Boston, who said the problem was not my face and not my age — it was that everything I owned was the color of oatmeal. Then she sent me a link one evening with three words: just read it.

The Clarke family runs a small boutique here in South Carolina, family-run since 1986 — three generations, mother to daughter. The sweater is called the Luna, and their letter walks through the handful of things they refused to compromise on. I am going to let their words carry it, because they say it better than I could.

1A relaxed cut that skims, never clings

We cut the Luna easy through the body. The shoulder drops, the sleeve is roomy at the top, and the body falls straight past the middle instead of gripping it. A pattern like this only works on a shape that is calm underneath, so nothing pulls across the back and nothing gathers where you would rather it did not.

2Warm, but light enough to keep on indoors

The Luna is a light sweater on purpose. It holds warmth the way a good thermal does, without the weight of a winter knit, so you can put it on at seven in the morning and still be comfortable at the kitchen table at noon. Nothing to peel off, nothing to change out of halfway through the day.

3The waffle knit does the work

We make the Luna in a soft waffle knit — a little raised, a little textured, the way a good thermal feels against you. It gives with you when you move instead of pulling, it holds its shape through the day, and there is none of the scratch women our age have learned to expect from anything warm.

4Stripes with something hidden in them

The Luna started as artwork: soft wandering stripes in dusty pink, sky blue, sage and gold on a cream ground, and tucked between them little hearts, dots and dashes you only notice up close. From across a room it reads as a gentle pastel stripe. Up close it is the kind of thing people lean in to look at.

5One of fifty-four, all at one price

The Luna sits in a collection of fifty-four designs, and they all cost the same — so choosing is about which one you like rather than which one you can justify. These pastel stripes if you want soft, big flowers or a plaid if you want something else. Most women pick one, wear it for a week, and quietly come back for a second.

6It fits the body you have

We make the Luna from a size XS all the way to 4XL, and every size is cut on the same relaxed lines — the larger ones are not simply stretched out, and the pattern is scaled so the stripes stay in proportion on every size. Order the size you usually wear; it is meant to sit easy on you.

The Luna, against the sweaters you've been buying

Why they're clearing it now

They priced the Luna at $185.00 when it launched, and it sold at that price all season. But for America's 250th, the Clarke family wanted to give something back to the women who have kept their doors open since 1986 — so every sweater in the collection is going out at less than a third of that.

Mine came in a kraft box on a Tuesday, folded in white tissue. I put it on in the bedroom and wore it out to the mailbox in the same hour.

I do not usually write things like this. But I spent too many years feeling plain and a little invisible in my own clothes — and one sweater covered in soft stripes, of all things, quietly gave me back the pleasure of getting dressed. If that sounds like you, I hope you find your size before it clears.

— Sandra Thompson · Mount Pleasant, SC

This is a personal account from a Clarke Family customer. Sandra was not paid to write it. · The Clarke Family · Family Fashion · South Carolina, since 1986 · Free UPS shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee.