A letter from a reader Tabitha S

The coordinated set where every piece works together, the pants sit without pinching, and you look effortlessly put-together without trying.

By Sandra Thompson · Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

Posted September 2026 · 6 min read

I am 63 years old, and I’d reached a point where comfort meant giving up on looking anything but frumpy. Everything soft enough to actually relax in looked like I was surrendering. Everything that looked intentional pinched, rode up, and left me tugging at it all evening.

It wore on me more than I let on. I had started to feel a little invisible in my own clothes.

Then a woman in my church group here in Mount Pleasant kept turning up looking comfortable and quietly put-together at the same time. I finally asked her. She laughed and told me to read the Clarke family’s letter first.

The Clarke family runs a small boutique here in South Carolina, family-run since 1986 — three generations, mother to daughter. The set is called Tabitha, 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.

1You Don’t Have to Guess — It Already Works

We made the Tabitha as a coordinated set on purpose — the top and the pants are cut and colored to work together in every way. You don’t stand there wondering if the pieces match, or whether they look intentional. The choice has been made for you.

2Every Place You’d Rather Not Think About

The top falls loose over the middle, the long sleeves cover the tops of the arms, and the pants do the rest. It is the only category that handles all three at once — tummy, upper arms, and legs. Nothing to second-guess on the way out the door.

3No Tights to Fight With. Ever.

The pants in this set are wide-leg and roomy — comfortable enough that you would not dream of pulling on tights. No wrestling with stiff hands, no static cling, no showing your legs if you would rather not. The pants do the coverage themselves.

4Sit Down and Stay Sitting

The wide-leg cut is roomy and forgiving — it sits on your lap without pinching, doesn’t ride up at the porch, in the car, or through a long lunch. At my age I spend most of any outing sitting down, and this is the only kind of pant that lets me do that in peace.

5One Unbroken Line, Top to Hem

The olive top and matching olive pants create one long, unbroken vertical line from shoulder to floor — the cream accents frame that line instead of breaking it. At 63, looking taller and narrower is not a small thing. This is the only set that can do that.

6Warm When You Arrive, Cool the Moment You Need It

The relaxed sweatshirt top layers easily over the set — on when you arrive cool, off and tied around your waist the moment a room warms up. It is the layer most of us forget we need until we are overheated in company and have nowhere to put the extra bulk.

The Tabitha Set, Against the Lounge Sets You’ve Been Buying

Why they’re clearing it now

They priced the Tabitha at $339.95 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 set is going out at less than a fifth of that.

I ordered mine on a Thursday evening. It arrived a few days later in a kraft-paper parcel with a note from the family tucked inside. I have worn it nearly every day since.

I do not usually write things like this. But I spent too many years believing I had to choose between comfort and looking like I tried — and this one set proved me wrong. 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.