People looking older in the past...

[QueenArseClangers]

Inspired by another thread about wearing clothes deemed ‘too young’ past a certain age.
I really think so. My grandmother (born in 1901) was dressed in a gaberdine mac and twin set once she was in her fifties and adopted using a walking stick on her 60th birthday as she declared herself an old lady!

Anyway, this photos in this article are fascinating.
www.boredpanda.com/past-young-people-look-older/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

I find that the makeup and fashion of previous stages weren't flattering at all! They looked good on a beautiful person full stop. Makeup nowadays is more about enhancing than it is about making a statement (contoring vs painted on eyebrows/bright blue eyeshadow/....)

Case in point Dolly Parton! Still has big hair big makeup but she just looks better

Smoking, smoking, smoking. Very popular in previous generations and even if you didn't smoke, passive smoking was unavoidable. Terrible for your looks.
That and losing teeth at an early age. There were no implants and it gave your face a 'caved in' look.

Although I think sometimes we flatter ourselves a little that we look younger than we do. I have teenagers and to them a 30 something still looks 'old'.

I was looking at old photos of my grandparents from when I was a small child. I always remember my nan having to wear a head scarf and cardigan every time we went out, I always saw her as being very old but at the time she was only in her 50’s, I can remember her turning 60 and thinking she was really old, she’s now 94 and hasn’t really changed much (a bit more frail obviously). My mum is now in her early 60’s but doesn’t look like a old lady at all, not like how I remembered my Nan looking at that age.

sadly I think there have always been women who aged badly and never made an effort as they became older. My mum is in her 90s and looks years younger partly because she takes care of herself, her weight and still uses make up and good skin care.

Having said that, it's easier now to dress as you want rather than to some societal expectation. women also work well into middle age and older which keeps them in touch with younger people and young at heart.

And life expectation is longer.

I was looking at pictures of my granny a while ago with me as a three year old. I suddenly realised she was only 50 but looked 70 plus with her bubble perm, shoes, clothes. It is shocking how many women went down that route in middle age.

I’m sick to death of auto correct

Definitely true! I carry a photo around with me in my purse, of my gran. She is 50 in the photo, no teeth and a full perm. I’m just slightly younger and can’t believe how much younger I look than she did at the same age. Have to add that I wear makeup every day, have a full set of teeth and straighten my hair to within an inch of its life, which I guess helps....

We discussed this at home a while ago. Any old footage from the 70's like say studio audiences, everyone seems so old ladies with tweedy coats, hats and hanfbags sat on their knee

I met MIL early 80's when she was 51. She had been in crimpilene twin sets tan tights for years and looked about 80

My dad said about younger men shaving their heads because of balding locks, that in his day not so many men did go bald. Makes you think.

@justasking111

My dad said about younger men shaving their heads because of balding locks, that in his day not so many men did go bald. Makes you think.

I think they did. Most men were balding, male pattern baldness, receding hair line. I doubt that’s different.

Don't forget, surgeons were very stab-happy and hysterectomies for women over 40 where the done thing since it was assumed that most women's illnesses were a result of that wondering womb. That was very aging since HRT wasn't a thing. Both my GMs were never really well women after that - again very aging.

It would be like being a man having been castrated and being denied HRT.

"My lovely DM had me when she was 44 "

My (wonderful) grandmother was 44 when I was born - with a tight perm in grey hair. I'm 44 now, with hair that has maybe one or two strands of grey, but hasn't been permed in over 30 years (and even then, it was loose... and a mistake!).

My daughter contours... and in reality it looks awful. These normal girls are trying to emulate the Kardashians - and it simply looks awful. They won't realise until they're a lot older, sadly, just as we didn't realise that our fashion trends were diabolical.

Watching Call the Midwife reminded me how those "old fashioned" prints and dresses were actually really chic and fashionable - even super stylish Trixie might have turned into a 50 year old woman with a bubble perm!

My oldest sister who's now in her 50s is the spitting image of my nan at the same age the only difference is that she's got blue hair and not the queen's hairdo! Then again thinking about it, I reckon my nan had a blue rinse once or twice!!

I saw a picture of my mum in the 60s and she wasn't the flowery dress type or the hippie type she was probably 20 or so and was in slacks and a quilted jacket and looked pretty modern. I think some clothing just "dates" a person.

Oh, also - my grandmother had her teeth taken out and replaced by dentures for her 21st birthday as a gift

Apparently, pre-1950s this was normal.

*For women a lot of it had an unpleasant moral overtone I think.

Dressing in a self-consciously "attractive" way was associated with the idea that you were dressing to attract a mate. Once you had attracted a mate, married him and were off the market it was thought to be a bit "scarlet" to dress in the same way. Hence the phrase "mutton dressed as lamb" which I've always found particularly offensive.*

Yep. Once you were married you 'belonged' to your husband and were supposed to only be attractive to him. So even though women usually married at quite a young age then, they often dressed in a rather 'frumpy' way. After all, they had a man now, didn't they? So why did they need to look attractive or sexy anymore? What would her husband say if other men were sneaking a glance at his wife's legs?

That's amazing! I think its alot to do with looking after yourself. No using suncream, so much smoking, work conditions were terrible and they didnt dress very flattering, men and women.

I actually 'de-aging' in operation with my mum!

She was born in 1929 and went out to work at the age of 14. So there are photos of her, aged 14, in war years fashion. Hair up at the front in a 'victory roll', thick red lipstick (she had to put it on in the phone box at the end of the road as her dad said only 'prostitutes and actresses wear red lipstick - she never did know how he knew ha ha!). She wore a suit and flat shoes (because of having to run for the shelters). Though you can see she's a young girl because of the skin tone, even in a black and white photo, she still dressed far older. Because that was what was expected. You didn't have teenagers. You dressed like your older sisters or mum when you started work.

Then she had us in the 1960s and it was all frocks like the Stepford Wives. She did wear short dresses (not minis as she was over a certain age). Because women didn't wear trousers a lot - she did wear Capri pants or cropped trousers but only at the beach. She had her hair set every week - I remember the smell of the setting lotion in the salon (yes she did go to a salon every week - rollers in at night in between to make the set last).

Then she hit the 1970s plus and trousers were 'allowed', hair was just blow dried, possibly a perm and by the 1990s she was shopping in Top Shop occasionally alongside us! As she hit 60 plus she began to dye her hair - her mother would never have done that.

By the time she died aged 90 earlier this year we were buying her clothes at the same chain stores we used and she'd only stopped dyeing her hair at 85 because she developed dementia and forgot! But she still had a shampoo and blow dry every couple of days in her care home - never a set. Too ageing according to her!

I remember my aunts being younger than I am now and wearing clothes very similar to the women in the TV programme 'Ad Men' - which are lovely but very restrictive compared to how I dress now. I'd only wear a dress like that if I were going out and even if I did wear something like them to work they'd be lycra or some other 'moveable' material. My aunts wore cotton or wool which doesn't move with you and you had to have long line bras and girdles underneath for the smooth look. Work clothes for me are a good pair of trousers and an easy to move in top and I wouldn't know where to buy a girdle. My aunt took her daughter to buy her first one at 16 - not because she needed it but because it made the clothes hang better.

Being 'buttoned up, zipped up' constricted isn't for me and nowadays it doesn't matter. There's a fashion that works for most people.

@JinglingHellsBells

sadly I think there have always been women who aged badly and never made an effort as they became older. My mum is in her 90s and looks years younger partly because she takes care of herself, her weight and still uses make up and good skin care.

Having said that, it's easier now to dress as you want rather than to some societal expectation. women also work well into middle age and older which keeps them in touch with younger people and young at heart.

And life expectation is longer.

See, my mum did this, BUT she also smoked for about 50 years of her life. She has really good genes, though.

It is about 80% fashions and if you photoshopped their faces into pictures with modern clothes and hair they would look their true age to our modern eyes.

The remainder is largely technology.

Contact lenses are a thing now so far less people glasses and those who do have thinner lenses, and no obvious bifocal line, plus a better range of frames.

Teeth are better looked after now, a full set of dentures is rare and we have options like crowns, veneers, implants, orthodontics, whitening etc.

Hair dye is better, more available and more acceptable even for men.

There are no end of cosmetic treatments available, especially to those with an above average income, that would have been unthinkable (or reserved for the super rich) 20 or more years ago.

Smoking and sun damage would have aged people a little faster but generally it isn't really that people aged faster.

I think previous generations where expected to grow up and be like their parents, as soon as they hit their teens. My parents generation (baby boomers) where out working and dressing like mini adults at 15.

I'm not sure that we have it right now, there seems to be a natural acceptance of the cycles of life back then, where as we all seem in denial about it. Sorry to be morbid, but I remember my mum telling me about how her parents generation would go to see deceased friends / relatives in their homes to pay final respects, you don't really hear much about that these days. Ageing and death are hidden away, or can be fixed with a pill.
In my opinion a lot of people my age (40's) and younger seem terrified of growing older, I realise that this isn't the case for everyone, but when you have 20 year olds botoxing themselves and 40 year olds dressing like teenagers, it would appear to me there is an element of denial taking place that isn't healthy.

Before anyone jumps in to give me a hard time, I think its great that people feel able to break the mould and dress how they want to, but I do wonder sometimes what's motivating it, is it because they are 'breaking barriers and living their best life', or is it because you're not allowed to grow old anymore.

Marilyn Munroe was born in 1926 - the same year as HM The Queen

I always remember my Gran looking like an old woman, looking back she most definitely wasn't old. She always wore flowery dresses from M&S or BHS, her hair was pure white and had been since she was 21. She had it permed and my mum or aunty would put it in rollers for her between perms.
She had a very hard life though, nursed her DH through cancer when my mum was a teen, he was kept at home and was bedridden for a year before he died. She worked incredibly long hours as a stitcher in a factory.
But it was definitely her hair and dress sense that made her seem older, but most people of her generation was the same. Also we live in NI which wasn't know as the most cosmopolitan of places in the 70's

Life was a lot harder in the past, even relatively recently. If you consider the restricted access to healthcare during Covid then that was the norm, and there was no anti-biotic treatment so a bad tooth could kill you. People worked long hours in manual jobs, and that included domestic service. A balanced diet was difficult to maintain and you eat what you could afford. Other differences were an outside toilet, no central heating , only a bicycle and you'd have had to save up for that. That said my grandmother told me that we had lost as much as we had gained. And given the choice she'd have chosen life as it was. She lived until she was a 100 and left me her diaries and photo's. Her diaries revealled that she had two affairs during the war and her youngest child was a result of one of those. When my grandfather found out he took his belt to her, she said she got what she desereved but there was no question of divorce and the child was brought up within the family. .... “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

In the late 70's/early 80's my Mum wore headscarves, mac and flat shoes. Lady Di hair cut. That's just how young women (conservative? middle class?) dressed in Ireland, and presumably a lot of England, at the time. But I definitely remember all my friends' Mums seeming a LOT older and their Dads being ANCIENT.

For men - men now dye their hair and beards. This is made an EPIC difference. A lot of the men in that link who look old are just grey. All of them today would dye their hair. Men are fitter now too. They go to the gym, run, cycle etc. into their 60's, and they don't smoke. When I was a young'un, men smoked like chimneys and were completely unfit from their 20's on. I think a lot of them lost their teeth too.

Women - same with hair - the "set" look hung on in there for a long time!

TEETH are a big one! Many women literally had their teeth REMOVED when they got married. In Ireland " in the late 1970s about 30% of the population of this country over the age of 18 had no natural teeth." link

I think a lot of women would simply not wear their dentures as they got older (uncomfortable, couldn't afford to replace etc) and some of the photos of women in their 50's looking ancient are because they are literally toothless, so their lower faces have that collapsed "old crone" look.

And dressing for weight. The combination of being overweight with those shapeless knee length tunic dresses and shelf-like bosoms is something we associate with age now. Women are more likely to be overweight now, admittedly, but we have better clothes and bras for it!

My parents got married 25 years ago and my mum was 2 years younger than I am now but somehow looks older than she is now!