A LETTER FROM ELEANOR — FOUNDER OF THE ASHFORD FAMILY, NAPLES, FLORIDA

Reading time: about 4 minutes

A note from Eleanor: I wrote this myself, at the kitchen table, because I owe you an honest explanation of why every sweater in our pre-fall collection is marked down to $59.95.

I HAVE SPENT YEARS PUTTING WOMEN IN SWEATERS THAT LAST. THIS SEASON, I NEED TO CLEAR EVERY ONE OF THEM, AND I'D RATHER TELL YOU WHY MYSELF.

On why our Revival Sale exists, what makes these knits different from the ones you keep throwing away, and why the price on every sweater is one I'd normally never agree to.

Shop the Revival Sale · 70% Off

Our shop in Naples, on an ordinary Tuesday.

I am Eleanor, and The Ashford Family is exactly what it sounds like, a family, selling the kind of clothes we always wished we could find, to women who are tired of buying the same disappointing sweater over and over.

Our shop sits in Naples, Florida, a few streets back from the water. Most of you have never walked into it, and you don't need to, everything we do fits into one idea you can understand in a sentence:

Buy one good one, not ten cheap ones.

My grandmother used to say that. She owned one good sweater. One. She wore it for twenty years and it looked better on her than anything I ever ordered online has looked on me. That rule is the entire company.

I'm writing you today because this season, for the first time, I have to do something that goes against my instincts: I'm clearing our entire pre-fall collection of sweaters and cardigans at a price that barely makes sense for us. And I don't want you to find that out from a red discount banner. I want you to hear it from me, with the reason attached.

Here is the truth, plainly.

We are a small business in a market full of very large ones. The companies we compete with sell a sweater that costs almost nothing to make, knowing you'll be back to replace it by spring. That is their model, and it works for them.

Ours is the opposite. We use heavier yarn, tighter knits, and construction that costs real money, because the whole point is that you should not be back by spring. It is a better product and a much harder business.

This year has been hard. Harder than we say out loud in our ads. And a small business in a hard year has exactly one honest option: turn its stock into breathing room, and trust that the women it sells to will remember.

So that is what the Revival Sale is. Not a marketing calendar event. A decision, made at a kitchen table, that I would rather see these sweaters on your shoulders at $59.95 than sitting folded in our back room at $199.95.

That's the whole story. Now let me tell you what you'd actually be getting, because a low price on a bad sweater is no favor to anyone.

1. Thick, dense yarn that doesn't pill

You know the little balls. Every woman does. They show up after the third wash on the sweater that was supposed to be your favorite, and from that day on it's a “house sweater.”

Pilling isn't bad luck, it's short, loose, cheap fiber working its way out of a loose knit. It is a decision someone made at a factory to save money. We made the opposite decision: longer fibers, tighter knit, more weight. You can feel the difference the moment the box lands in your hands.

Left: the kind you replace every spring. Right: ours.

★★★★★

"The weight surprised me the moment I picked it up, this is a real sweater, thick and substantial. I've washed it three times now and there isn't a single pill on it."

Patricia M — Portland, Oregon

2. A shape that skims, and never clings

Most knitwear is built for a 25-year-old fit model, and every woman my age knows it within three seconds of putting it on. It grabs exactly where you don't want it to, and you spend the whole evening adjusting it.

Ours hang from the shoulder and fall straight. They skim. They don't cling, they don't ride up, and they don't announce anything you didn't choose to announce. You put it on, you look put-together, and then, this is the point you stop thinking about it.

★★★★★

"It skims instead of clings. I'm in my sixties and this is the first sweater in years I don't spend the whole day tugging down. It hangs from the shoulder and falls straight, exactly as promised."

Linda J — Phoenix, Arizona

3. Sleeves that stay where you put them

A small thing that isn't small: sleeves with real ribbing at the cuff, long enough to push up and have them stay up, substantial enough to cover the tops of your arms when you want them covered. Half the women who write to us mention the arms. We listened years ago.

★★★★★

"The sleeves actually stay where I push them. I wore it from morning coffee to evening television and never once wanted to take it off."

Sandra H — Denver, Colorado

4. Colors chosen to go with what you already own

We don't do trend colors that expire in March. The collection runs on soft creams, deep greens, warm browns, dusty blues, colors picked so that whatever is already hanging in your closet, at least three things go with it on day one.

★★★★★

"The color is even prettier in real life than in the photos. It goes with everything I already own jeans, grey trousers, everything."

Nancy T — Austin, Texas

THE SWEATERS YOU'VE BEEN BUYING, AGAINST OURS

MOST $30 SWEATERS

• Thin, loose knit that pills by the third wash
• Clings in exactly the wrong places
• Cuffs stretch out within a season
• Trend colors that match nothing you own
• Replaced every single year

THE ASHFORD FAMILY

• Heavy yarn, tight knit, made to resist pilling
• Skims the body, never grabs
• Real ribbed cuffs and hem that hold their shape
• Soft classic colors that work with your closet
• Made to be worn for years, not seasons

“I refuse to make a woman choose between being comfortable and looking like herself. That is the whole reason this company exists.”

— Eleanor

WHY EVERY SWEATER IS $59.95 UNTIL THEY'RE GONE

Every sweater and cardigan in the pre-fall collection is marked from $199.95 down to $59.95. I want to be plain about what that price means: at $59.95 we are barely covering what these cost us to make and ship. This is not a margin decision. It is a room-to-breathe decision.

I will be equally plain about the other side of it: when this collection is gone, it's gone, and the price goes with it. We are not a company that runs a fake countdown clock. We are a company with a back room that needs to be empty before the winter collection arrives.

If years of watching women get dressed have taught me anything, it's this: the sweater you love at full price is the same sweater at $59.95. The only thing that changes is how you'll feel about having waited.

And if you find one you love — take a second one in another color. We take 15% extra off when you buy two. That's not a trick either; it just costs us less to ship them together, and we'd rather give that back to you.

$59.95

every sweater, from $199.95

24

styles to choose from

15%

extra off when you buy 2

30

day money-back guarantee

★★★★★

"I ordered one cardigan during the sale, half expecting to send it back. Instead I ordered two more the same week. The weight, the finish, the way it holds its shape after washing it reminds me of the sweaters my mother used to buy. This is what knitwear used to be."

Lisa D — Atlanta, Georgia

The moment the box has some weight to it, you already know.

The reviews on this collection say the same things, over and over: the weight, the colors, the fact that it still looks right after a season of real wearing. I won't pile them all into this letter, they're on every product page, from women whose names I recognize because they've come back two and three times.

If you have ever wanted an easy sweater that keeps its shape, its color, and its promise this is the one time I'd tell you not to think it over too long. Not because a clock is ticking. Because the back room is emptying, and I genuinely don't know how long the popular colors will last.

Thank you for reading this far. It matters more than you know.

— Eleanor

OUR SWEATERS & CARDIGANS

★★★★★

$199.95  $59.95

70% OFF — REVIVAL SALE

✓ Heavy, dense knits made to resist pilling
✓ 24 styles and colors while they last
✓ Extra 15% off when you buy 2
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee

✓ Free premium shipping

Claim Your Pieces Before They're Gone →

About the writer: Eleanor is the founder of The Ashford Family, a family-run knitwear boutique in Naples, Florida. She still writes every letter on this site herself, and still refuses to sell a sweater she wouldn't put on her own daughter.