To ask if I’m still allowed to choose my own clothes now I’m middle-aged?

[Gruach]

I reported my own highly annoyed, S&B post to MN. They said I should start a thread about it.

Here’s the post:
“... sometimes I do genuinely believe that there must be a campaign somewhere to make grown women feel insecure and ashamed of not staying the same age forever.

And it's truly sickening. Especially now - with all the debate over the role of culture, religion and patriarchy in how women dress. This is supposed to be a forum addressing the concerns of adult women (and anyone else who's interested?) Why, then, are so many threads predicated on trying to get women to be ashamed of continuing to be alive as adult women? Apologising for not being young ... Apologising for choosing their own clothes ...

Is there any way you might start a conversation about this?”

Was kinda hoping for an instant, ready made global campaign - but ... y’know ...

I’m middle aged. I like getting dressed. I don’t like to think that other people are sniggering behind their hands and wondering why I even bother to leave the house now I’m so old. And there are just too many ‘am I allowed to wear this now I’m - whatever age’. I wish it would stop.

LyndorCake

I'm 44 and I honestly can't relate to what you're saying. I dress the same as I always have, as do my friends. My mum (aged 70), wears what she damn well pleases. She loves fashion, bright colours, prints and costume jewellery. She is not as slim as she once was. She looks great. What's really sad, to me, is older people who dress head to toe in beige, which is an awful shade and totally draining to older colouring. I saw a woman yesterday walking down the high street, she must've been in her 80s, and she was wearing an orange jacket, coral shirt and apricot skirt and I thought 'Good for you!'. She looked happy and confident and really rather fabulous.

I'm 50 and my dd is 18, she pinches clothes from my wardrobe so I can't be that frumpy

I still wear fashionable clothes and couldn't care what others think. I've always been fairly modest with clothing and nothing has changed. I've not had a sudden desire to start wearing short shorts outside although in the recent heatwave I did buy some to wear in the house

It’s a funny thing LyndorCake - this judgemental, prescriptive attitude only seems to exist in the U.K. Everywhere else I’ve been in the world women of all ages and shapes dress for the weather and their occupation - no-one’s apologising for wrinkles or weight or loose skin or whatever.

I don't feel people are judgemental. I wear shorts, jeans, comfy shoes, teeshirts - everything I've always worn and I'm mid 60s now. I don't care what people think and I don't honestly think they notice anyway.

I'm 50 and my dd is 18, she pinches clothes from my wardrobe so I can't be that frumpy

But this statement reveals exactly the point! By the age of 50 we're expected to dress in a certain way, and a way which is dismissed as frumpy.

@ShirleyPhallus

Perhaps I’m not your target audience as a 30-something but I don’t identify with what you’re saying at all

Because you don't see it. Because it doesn't resonate with you as you're younger! But I can assure, as someone who isn't a 30-something, that it happens a lot on MN. Consciously and unconsciously.

I think you may have to wrong end of the stick. People aren't particular concerned about policing what older women wear. They are just less forgiving of adult women who dress like idiots as opposed to teenagers who are somewhat humoured in this respect. Probably has sonething to do with the fact that as we get older the way we dress gets tied into our responsibilities. Wearing sesinble clothing for being out and about with young children, dressing well when at work, dressing appropriately for functions so we don't embarrass the people associated with us etc.

less forgiving of adult women who dress like idiots

dressing appropriately for functions so we don't embarrass the people associated with us etc.

Jeeeeeeeeeez ...

You don’t sound as if you like women much Racecardriver - not even yourself. Do you honestly believe what you’ve typed?

And yes to everything BIWI says. You don’t notice it unless it’s ‘aimed’ at you.

The one that gets right on my thre'pennies has been noted upthread: no short/sleeveless tops/dresses for the bingo-winged.

Yet no-one suggests paper bags over the head for the, ahem, pulchritudinally-challenged.

YY to what BIWI and Gruach said.

I have always loved fashion I am now in my 60's and (after a wobble in my 50's when I thought I need to stop wearing certain clothes) I have got my mojo back and enjoy wearing all sorts of clothes. I also look much younger since I have given up the safe clothes

I do struggle with shoes as I have one very wide foot but I have found some at Vionic that are not too horrid. When in Clarks they brought me a pair that my 90 yr old MIL wouldn't have worn - I very nearly cried but managed to just walk out instead

I guess it's easier if, like me, you're just not that interested in clothes. I tend to think that the policing of how women dress, although very definitely a sexist and ageist thing, is also part of the larger and more general problem that human beings set far too much store by physical appearance.

I admit that I pretty much wear what society might expect a mc 47 year-old woman to wear, but I do it because that's what's easy, available, comfortable and relatively flattering shape-wise. If I wanted to wear 'younger' clothes, I would do so. I certainly care far far less now about what others think of me than I did when I was 17. Or 25.

I am 50 and dress exactly as I want-never had an inappropriate comment- no frumpiness at all and never had any pressure to be frumpy.

What I am wearing today,

www.orlakiely.com/clothing/dresses/embroidered-organza-lucie-long-dress-in-black-pink-lining-configurable-clothing18sworg722-00138

Wear what you want no one notices! Just get on with it stop fretting!

Great points raised by Gruach and BIWI. I wince when I see all the articles telling women over 50 what they should wear or must avoid. And how they should apply their make up now they're decrepit.

My 20 something daughter and her friend, when starting work on a graduate scheme admitted to each other that they took their working style from their mothers. I took that as a compliment and an endorsement of my classic with modern twist style of dress.

As someone who started working life as a total scruff, it gave me a massive boost - both as indication that I’d grown out of the scruffiness and joy that my daughter didn’t have to go through the same painful learning curve.

wear what you want no one notices

But they do!

The number of threads that appeared on here alone commenting on how other women were dressed was awful!
Women who were apparently inappropriately dressed for a toddler group was another one that stuck out in my mind. Did the OP ever think that the reason some of the other mums were wearing vest tops or short skirts may have been because thats the only thing they owned that they felt was cool enough for the weather? Not everyone can rush out and buy a whole new wardrobe for every type of weather whenever they gain weight, lose weight, or get older. Sometimes we have to just play the cards we're dealt and then, despite feeling crap enough about it all, you come on this website and are told indirectly that you are disgusting.

I feel like those who are saying "wear what you want, don't give a damn, I don't care what ppl think and I am 50+, ppl dont notice etc etc" are sort of missing the OP's point. Spend some time on S&B and you will see daily threads about what to wear or not wear when you are a certain age (or weight, or with bingo wings and too big thighs). I am in my 30s fwiw. Good for you if you can't see it, but it exists.

People absolutely do notice! If they didn't then there'd be no need for the kind of thread we're complaining about

You must be very self conscious then
Wear what makes you happy and you feel comfy in
Life is too short to stuff a mushroom!