Vera’s Scarves

My husband and I are watching the long-running (14 seasons!) show Vera on BritBox. If you haven’t seen it, the star is a curmudgeonly detective in her fifties, no longer svelt, with a brusque style and an unusual wardrobe. Out in the field she wears a mackintosh with a green hat. (You can buy a copy here.) But it is her indoor outfits that interest me. The clothes have no particular style and she makes no effort to “show off her best features,” standard advice given to the older set. Instead, she wears frumpy looking dresses or skirts and long-sleeved blouses, almost always with an LL Bean style quilted vest over them. Occasionally she appears in baggy pants. With skirts and dresses she wears tights or knee socks. She always has on flat slip on shoes, all the easier to change to boots when the outside weather is rough. Her clothes are completely practical, and you have the sense that she wears whatever is clean, maybe reaching into her closet when it is still dark. However, one…