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

Sweets didn't come off ration until 1953. And, during the war, flour was rationed - home baking consisted of making really unappetising things out of parsnip and carrot. People's teeth were bad because there was no NHS dentistry, not because of sugar.

Jobs were physical so people burned off what they ate too. They looked older because they were often outside in all weathers, had low bodyfat and a lot of stress.

They looked older because they were often outside in all weathers

Yes, no sunscreens then.

stigma... how has no one mentioned that so far.

Nowadays there is huge stigma to looking old.
There was not huge stigma 50+ years ago.

Being young & old were variations rather than perception that one was innately ugly if looked old

I was watching the new series of Deutschland 89 and there was real life footage of a woman in 1989/1990 who said she was 42 and if she lost her job she’d never get another one. She’s younger than I am now and def don’t feel like my career prospects are finished. She also looked so much older than I do.

Some people seem to grow into their age as it were . I know several people who, when I was younger, I considered quite old (or certainly looked it) and was surprised to find they were a similar age (or younger) than my parents. Now the same people are actually old (as in over 70) and they look the same as they did 20 or 30 years ago, and have sort of grown into their age if that makes sense.

I used to have the most lovely neighbour. She was a very grandmotherly figure, right from the day she moved in. Her hair was pure white and permed and she wore big tent like dresses, always tights with sandals! I never thought twice about her age or the fact that her younger daughter was still at school and only about five years older than me. It was only when she died many years later that I figured out she must have been in her late forties when she moved in. I honestly thought she was in her seventies when I met her and still in her seventies when she died thirty years later😃. She was one of the best people I ever met. I still miss her.

Not trying to offend any grandmothers with my description. That was how I thought they should look back in the seventies when I was a child. I'm old enough to be a grandmother myself (53), but my children are only 12 and 8!

@lljkk

stigma... how has no one mentioned that so far.

Nowadays there is huge stigma to looking old.
There was not huge stigma 50+ years ago.

Being young & old were variations rather than perception that one was innately ugly if looked old

Interestingly I remember in the Enid Blyton book Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm - Jane the country cousin was laughing at Melisande the town cousin for using face cream and saying she wouldn't use it, and her mother saying "I rather hope you will when you're old enough - you don't want to look like one of those weatherbeaten old women at the market."

weather worn doesn't have to = old, though.
Once up on a time, Women attracted huge social respect by being respectable & matriarchs. Even if they were weather-worn.

But looking weatherworn was a sign that you were a manual worker who spent a lot of time in the open.

Haha yeah when it started that was how old they were, he had been forced into early retirement so not sure if he was meant to be older but probably not much as the retirement age was probably 60 lol

@Dixiechickonhols

Teeth v false teeth. All my grandparents had false teeth from youngish age.

Yes, often teeth were routinely taken out particularly if you went into the army in WW2 like my grandfather

@Heartofglass12345

Haha yeah when it started that was how old they were, he had been forced into early retirement so not sure if he was meant to be older but probably not much as the retirement age was probably 60 lol

Retirement age has never been 60 for men. It’s been 65 since the introduction of state pensions.