At 63, I'd spent forty autumns choosing between staying dry and looking like myself

Six things this jacket gets right that a closet full of "waterproof" coats got wrong, from a woman who doesn't review coats.

Diane Pelletier · Customer · Ottawa, Ontario · 5 min read

Let me be plain about who's talking. I'm Diane, I'm 63, I live in Ottawa with my husband Gilles and a retriever who treats every grey sky as a personal insult, and I've never once written to a shop about a coat. What I have done is go outside in weather — forty years of it. The dog twice a day whatever the forecast, the grandkids' soccer in the drizzle, the bus stop on Bank Street, and a fall bus tour through the Rockies last year where it rained four days out of five. So this isn't a review. It's a woman who has worn a great many coats in a great deal of rain, telling you which one was finally worth it.

The coat I'm writing about is the Sophia, from Sylvie & Odette, a small shop that's been quietly making the sensible things a little lovelier for women our age. I first saw it on another grandmother at the soccer pitch, and when the shop later asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes — as long as I could be completely honest in it.

It was a grey Saturday in October, the kind where the forecast says "risk of showers" and means "all day." Every other mother at the pitch was in the same thing I'd worn for years: a stiff navy shell that crackled when you moved and still let the wet in at the shoulders, or a pretty wool coat that looked lovely right up until it soaked up half the sky and hung on you like a wet sheep. This woman had neither. A proper hood that stayed up in the wind, a colour you could actually see across a field, and both hands free because she wasn't fighting an umbrella.

Here's what forty autumns taught me about coats. They come in two piles. The pile that keeps the rain out but makes you look like a bin bag with a zip, so you're warm, dry and completely invisible. And the pile that's lovely and soft and the right colour, and lets you down the moment it actually rains.

Either it kept me dry and I hated how I looked, or it looked nice and I got wet. I'd been choosing between the two for forty years.

So I asked her, right there behind the net, where on earth it was from. Then I did what I always do, which was go home, order one for myself — the teal, when I'd normally talk myself into black — and fully expect to send it back. It didn't go back. My sister Claudette took one look and ordered the black. After two more dog-soaked weeks and one proper downpour, I can tell you why it works, in six things.

1.The rain you actually walk in stays out

I'm starting here because it's the whole job of a coat, and most of mine failed it. The outer sheds the wind and the steady rain you get on a dog walk or standing at a pitch, and the front zips clean up to the chin without gaping. I walked the retriever through twenty minutes of it last week and came in with a dry jumper for the first time in years.

2.A hood that stays up in the wind

This is where it won me over. The hood has a drawstring, so you pull it in and it actually holds against a gust instead of blowing off your head the second you need it. No more walking a dog with one hand and wrestling an inside-out umbrella with the other. At my age, having both hands free in the wet is not a small thing.

3.Light enough to wear all day — and to pack

It's light in the hand, so I can wear it from the cold car park into a warm café and not feel like I'm carrying a duvet. On the bus tour I rolled it into the top of my bag in the morning and had it when the afternoon turned, which I could never do with my old heavy coat. It does the morning dog walk and it does the whole day out.

4.Pockets that zip shut

There are proper zip pockets, more than one, and they close. That means my phone, my keys and the dog's treats stay in the coat and stay dry, instead of working their way out when I bend down or sitting in a wet open pocket. It sounds like a little thing until the day it saves your phone.

5.It has a shape, and a colour, so you're not invisible

It's cut like a coat, not a sack, and it comes in colours you can actually choose — teal, black, a soft white, and a few bolder ones. I went sensible with the teal and Claudette went black, and both of us look like ourselves in it rather than like everyone else at the pitch. Being dry shouldn't mean disappearing, and in this one it doesn't.

6.Honest sizes, with the measurements written down

It comes in S through 3XL, and — this is the part I liked — they tell you to size up if you want room for a jumper underneath, which is exactly what you want from October on in this country. I took their advice, went one up, and it sits right over a thick cardigan without pulling across the back. No guessing, no squeezing.

The Sophia vs. the coat in your hall closet

You can spend good money on a "waterproof" coat in any shop in the country. I know, because I own the evidence. Here's the difference, laid out plainly.

About the price

The Sophia is $89.95 CAD.Was $200.00 CAD

I'll pass on what the shop told me: it's in the autumn sale to make room before the winter coats come in, and the colours are made in runs, so once a size or shade has sold through it can be a while before it's back. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that a markdown is usually where I start asking what's wrong with something — and after three weeks of walking the dog in it, I haven't found the catch.

And I don't trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. They're sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real women rather than robots, so I kept reading. The same six things I've just walked you through came up again and again, in other women's words.

What I'd tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sitting on the back deck with a pot of tea between us and you asked me, this is what I'd say.

If you've got a dog that needs walking whatever the sky's doing, or a bus tour booked, or grandkids who play in all weather — and a navy shell in the closet you've never once been glad to see — then it's worth ten minutes of your evening to go and have a look.

Not because a coat will change your life. It won't. But there's something about standing at the bus stop warm and dry and still looking like yourself that I'd quietly given up on, and I'd rather you didn't give up on it too. The sale is on now, and it's the teal that goes first — I know, because Claudette had to wait a week for hers.

I haven't come home with wet shoulders since.

Diane Pelletier

About the writer

Diane Pelletier is 63 and lives in Ottawa, Ontario, with her husband Gilles and a retriever. She is a customer, not an outdoor writer, and she was not paid to write this letter.

Sophia | Waterproof Jacket

★★★★☆ 4.2 out of 5

$89.95 CAD$200.00 CAD

• Weather-ready outer — sheds the wind and the rain you walk in
• Adjustable drawstring hood that stays up in the wind
• Smooth front zip and multiple zip pockets
• Lightweight — all-day wear, packs into a bag
• Colours: teal, black, white and more
• Sizes S–3XL — size up for layering over a sweater
• Free shipping across Canada · 30-day returns

See the Sophia Jacket

Autumn sale on now. The teal is selling out first.

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