I have never written anything like this before, and I want to say at the start that I am not a writer and I am not in the habit of telling other women what to wear.

But three different women asked me about a pair of dungarees at the garden centre café, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

It starts with a small ceremony I suspect you also perform. Somewhere in September, the summer dresses get packed away. And with them goes the thing nobody says out loud, which is that a dress asks nothing of your middle. All summer long, nothing pressing, nothing pinching, nothing to undo discreetly after lunch.

Then autumn arrives, and every single thing left in the wardrobe has a waistband. The fitted ones that pinch by lunchtime. The elastic ones that never quite sit right. Months of it ahead. Last week I stood in front of the trousers drawer and thought, no. Not this year.

The answer, hanging next to its roll neck.

How it happens

The shops decide this for us every year. Come September the dresses vanish and the trousers appear, and it is simply assumed that a woman will spend the colder months with something gripping her middle.

Nobody offers a third option. Or rather, they do, but for years I had mentally filed it under workwear and never thought to look twice.

What I had wrong

I thought dungarees were for toddlers and decorators. I would have said so cheerfully. I had simply never stood in a pair.

Here is what I had not understood. Dungarees do away with the traditional trouser waistband. The bib and straps do the work, while the middle is left far more relaxed, rather like the thing I love about a dress.

Put a roll neck underneath and a cardigan on top, and suddenly you are covered from chin to ankle, warm in layers, without feeling as though your trousers are announcing themselves every time you sit down.

The dress's understudy for the colder months. It had been there the whole time, wearing the wrong label.

The pair I found

Mine came from Bellthorne, a British women's fashion store I'd come across while looking for something a little different for autumn.

I chose a grey pair scattered with wildflowers. Little reds, creams, greens and soft pinks running through the print, enough colour to make them interesting without making me feel as though my clothes had entered the room before I had.

The shape was what surprised me most. Relaxed through the body, easy through the leg, with enough room underneath for the cream roll neck I seem to live in from September onwards.

And the print is what made them feel like an outfit rather than something I ought to be wearing while holding a paint roller.

The morning they arrived.

That last part matters more to me in autumn than I expected. When the sky turns grey for weeks at a time and the garden starts losing its colour, there is something rather lovely about carrying a few flowers around with you.

I did not expect to care about that. I care about it a great deal.

What happened at the garden centre

I wore them exactly as I'd imagined: cream roll neck underneath, cardigan over the top, and my usual autumn shoes.

My friend Jean and I went to the garden centre café on Tuesday. Three women asked me about them before we'd finished our tea.

Jean, who does not hand out compliments for sport, looked me up and down and said:

“You've somehow managed to look comfortable and properly dressed at the same time.”

I have decided to frame that one.

What I noticed more than the compliments was lunch. We had soup and a scone, and afterwards I sat there talking to Jean without once thinking about my middle.

Nothing to loosen. Nothing to adjust. Nothing digging in and quietly becoming more irritating as the afternoon went on.

I had forgotten autumn dressing didn't have to feel like trouser season.

Off duty, next to tomorrow's roll neck.

Three things I have learned since

One. The lack of a traditional waistband is the whole point. That was the problem I had been trying to solve with increasingly stretchy trousers for years. The dungarees simply approach the whole thing differently.

Two. They make layering remarkably easy. A long-sleeved top or roll neck underneath, cardigan over the top, and you are done. It is the sort of outfit that looks as though you thought about it considerably longer than you actually did.

Three. The grey pair was a dangerous place to start. Bellthorne has an entire collection of printed dungarees. Florals, botanical designs, softer colours and considerably bolder ones. I am already looking at another pair and have been instructed, by me, to behave myself.

The grey, and the second pair I am pretending not to think about.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me hesitate.

The dungarees are £37.95. They were £76.00.

My first thought was that I'd order one pair and see.

That seemed sensible.

Unfortunately, then they arrived.

What I liked was that I could wear them around the house in the morning, go out for lunch in exactly the same thing, and never have that feeling that I ought to change into something more presentable first.

That combination — genuinely comfortable but still something I am happy to be seen in — has become increasingly important to me.

I did what I imagine most of us do before buying from somewhere new. I looked through the styles, checked the sizing and spent far too long deciding which print looked most like me.

The grey flowers won.

Although judging by the second pair currently sitting in my basket, perhaps “won first” would be more accurate.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat with a pot of tea and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you have also packed away your dresses and felt your heart sink slightly at the thought of months of trousers, you are not being silly.

Sometimes it isn't trousers themselves we dislike. It's everything happening around the middle.

And there is another option.

Not because dungarees will change your life. They will not.

But there is something rather wonderful about getting to the end of an October afternoon feeling as comfortable as you did when you got dressed that morning. And being stopped by another woman asking where you found the flowers is a rather nice bonus.

The other thing I would say is not to decide dungarees “aren't for women our age” before you've actually tried them.

I did that for years.

At 67, I have finally reached the conclusion that if something is comfortable, makes me smile when I put it on and gets Jean to hand out an unsolicited compliment, I am far too old to worry about which imaginary age group it belongs to.

Helen