I am not sure older women can do 'artfully dishevelled'

[PittTheYounger]

without just looking knackered.

"I thought part of the point of growing older was that you stop caring very much about what other people think and suit yourself instead?"

Yeah, that's what you would have thought, wouldn't you?

I have no idea what I'm doing now I'm over 40. I can't do groomed to save my life.

Jane Birkin always looks good but I'm not sure it works if you don't have an iconic handbag named after you dangling on your arm .

Like Carol Vorderman's 'smokey eye' look, resembling a crack addict after a bar brawl?

To be fair, I think that is true of men too.

What can look attractively devil may care and arty in a 21 year old man just looks scruffy on a 50 year old man.

I'm not talking about uber- grooming - just things like making sure you have clean finger nails and don't have food down your front.

I think you can wear jeans at any age. However if you look as though you have been wearing them for a month, I think it becomes harder to pull off the 'just got back from travelling across South America' look as you get older.

I don't really think that having food down the front of your clothes could ever be considered attractive. Unless you find slightly odd things attractive that is!

"What can look attractively devil may care and arty in a 21 year old man just looks scruffy on a 50 year old man.

I'm not talking about uber- grooming - just things like making sure you have clean finger nails and don't have food down your front."

Sigh. So a man is fine so long as he has clean fingernails and no food down his front- a woman needs to look like Joan Collins.........

Looking at the Cilla picture, I think the fishnets look is tricky to carry off for most people.

However, if she were at the beach looking healthy and fit she would look fine in shorts.

I'm 32 and have never been able to do groomed in my life.

Jeans, blonde hair (longish), fringe, plain T-shirt, sometimes with a cardigan, and converse or running shoes.

I don't even know how to do anything else!

I think Eleanor Bron pulls it off quite nicely.
I will always wear what I like, what I think looks good on me, regardless of what other people think about it. I can't wear a mini skirt any more because I'm too podgy round teh middle, it would look ridiculous; and I was never a huge fan because I had over-muscled thighs and strange knees. No longer have the thighs, but am still too podgy for it to look anything but wrong, IMO.

I can't wear the classic look either, I look daft. I'll stick to my perennial student attire - jeans with boots and a scoop-necked t-shirt or long sleeved top. I don't "do" converse, can't stand the things (personal preference) and have long ago grown out of wearing trainers day in, day out.

I paint my toenails when I feel like it, I shave my legs in summer, I cut my hair when I feel like it, I don't wear make up or straighten my hair - but I never really have. I used to wear eye make up at least all the time from 15 until around 38 but then just got fed up with it as it started to irritate my eyelids. Now I save it for going out occasions.

Christ I do not ever want to look like Joan Collins, not ever.

My only concession to the aging process that been that I've toned down the heavy make up, less looks better now, a pp's point about the smokey eye is right.

Other than that I still look good, confidence and attitude count.

I still have a nose in Topshop and I wear blue nail polish.

MollyB you sound fabulous. Your post reminded ne of a poem

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph

Aggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No I am applying the basic grooming rules to men and women.

Seriously, I think that with youth you can get away with looking as though you slept in your clothes and have been partying for a week. You might need to have a sparkling personality and be physically attractive too, but I think e.g. a 21 year old at a festival with food down their front could look endearing/interesting to their contemporaries.

This is less easy to pull off as you grow older.

I'm surrounded by the affluently elegant but they are all in their late 60's/70's....it's an old lady look around here.

I lost my way after having kids, started to wear more conservative clothes, felt like the great pretender...but no longer, I rediscovered my love of unusual clothes, I have never enjoyed looking classy - it just isn't me, never has been and never will be.

Hakluyt are you ok?

I love that poem!

I don't like the idea of prescribing a particular way of dressing once you reach a certain age but there's no denying (in my case anyway) that looking good takes a bit more work these days.

I suit quite a natural look - anything too formal and I look (and feel) uncomfortable, too girly and I look like a kid who's raided the dressing up box. I need to be reasonably groomed to pull off a natural look and appear as though I've made no effort which I think is the point - one of the most unattractive things at any age is looking like you've tried too hard.

merry I am not so sure I agree.

I am in my 50s- very fit, size 10. What I do notice amongst women in their 20s is the huge number that are very obese, many more than women of my generation.

Not easy to pull off any outfit if you are lugging an extra five stone around with you- despite the fact you are 25.

Yeh and im in my forties and not convinced my body is a disgrace anyway. Healthier now than 20 years ago.
I wouldnt wear shorts myself but not apologetic for my legs!

True combust22.
I see young fat girls in ludicrous outfits everywhere. I think lamb cant get away with lamb!

Hakluyt
Go ahead girlies, spend a fortune on your cosmetics and your anti-ageing procedures and your dyes and your dietery fads whilst your brains shrivel up into a tight ball of panic about hitting 30 or 40 or 50 or...OMG I'm old!
I'd rather spend my cash on trekking through South America. Or Yunnan.
Oh, and food down your front is never bohemian and sexy, it has always been sloppy and foul.

Combust22, i did a course recently, mixed ages, every body 30+ was gasping for tea at every break! Or coffee. Generalisation perhaps but the under 30s were having coke and juice and oasis etc at TEA break.

at pretty much everything on here.

I do artfully dishevelled at 36. But then I have thick hair and hardly any wrinkles. So there.

could do with losing the baby weight though

OK, apologies for the repetition but I am going to say this one more time:
Older women do not all look the same.

Some of us suit a groomed look.
Some of suit more boho.
Some of us suit white shirts. And even a trenchcoat.
Some of us have good legs.
Some of us look sexy ('Ewww' did I hear you say?).

And some of us don't. It's really very simple.

"Oh, and food down your front is never bohemian and sexy, it has always been sloppy and foul."

So true!!