what will you NEVER wear because it will "make you your mum"

[MaureenCognito]

Always remember laughing at noddyholders posts about her mum and her penchant for silver chunky jewellery and flicky hair.

what item epitomises your mum?

Underarm hair and chin stubble

I think you need the slim Parisian figure and chic haircut to make that trick work :)

yes you might have a point.

Ok what about "what would Judi Dench wear?". Off-screen she is quite chic and does not have perfect proportions.

Does that work?

My mum wears clothes that are mismatched, old fashioned, often stained and on occasion with wholes in them - not because she is poor, just because she is hopeless and doesn't really care that much what she looks like.
It's a shame as she always was and still is a lovely looking lady. I often buy her nice outfits in which she looks great but she gets them stained very quickly or matches them with the wrong thing
She just has no fashion sense - not that I have much but I am not blind to colours and fabrics ffs

Oh and trousers that are 2" too short...

My mum dresses really stylishly and looks fab at 72
However, Per Una looks great on her and not on me
Same goes for Quilted jackets/Barbour type jackets and sensible, orthopaedis walking shoes (Ecco springs to mind)

My mum is very cool and always looks just right . I mostly want to borrow her clothes, not avoid them.

@ agathafusty, would you take your daughter's opinion of your clothes above your own though? 21 year olds care about fashion, and having certain brands. no idea what age your are so going to say that 40+ women care about dressing right for their body shape and they care less about trends and more about style.

so, a few years til my dd is 21 but if she tells me i look awful I will say, those raggy t-shirts from hollister do nothing for me.

lol at the chicken drumstick legs. yes, les jambons. that is a french term so some french women clearly get it wrong too.

My mother is now nearly 70. She has cerise coloured hair, styled into a sub Gothic mullet. Eye make up is heavy and black, 80s blusher and bright red lips, glued in place with Lipcote. Lots of black clothing and a fag.

JennaLemon you are so right, it took me until 40 to work out what would suit me due to body shape. Still don't get it right all the time but at least I know what direction I'm headed and it makes a huge difference.

yeah! took me til after having kids actually to realise, i think i'm going to make the most of having a waist when I get a waist back. Have dressed in a very simple slightly more feminine way since before children. So, a 'direction' of sorts.
But i'll never nag my daughter the way my mum nagged me. if she wants to wear a plaid ripped t-shirt of leopard skinnies i will just smile and nod. what's the point trying to force a 17 year old to look 37! some mothers were on that mission I think!

My mum wears those plastic rain hoods that tie under the chin. Not a good look.

Sigh, I miss my mum, who died 14 years ago far too young but I'm loving this thread and remembering me in my early twenties wondering WHY she would even pick jeans that went that far up her tummy (to be fair she died in '98, she didn't really have a chance at hipsters).

Jaunty knitted jumpers, alarming flat comfortable shoes with holes everywhere, presumably for 'airing', my old teenage cast-offs, bizarre 'bargains'. Every now and then she'd treat herself and i LOVED that, strange that she didn't do it more often.

After she died I wore her (hideous) green coat for comfort and found an email to me in the pocket that she'd carefully written out, so as to go to a library and type up to send (I still have it treasured).

My mum has fingers like pork sausages. She grows her nails really long and paints them Rose/coral/mid plum shimmery colours. I really dislike coloured nails on hands that are not either a French polish or black/dark. It's that mid tone sugary territory.

Also not keen on the cropped trousers worn with a cork mini wedge slingback from foot glove with peep toe. The hairy toe doesn't help.

My mum can look stunning but if she is loafing around then the fleece comes out and all manner of bobbly nonsense with crusty stains.

She also draws her eyebrows on. Badly.

My mum has her own style - mostly comfortable slacks/shorts/tshirts/vests, flowery skirts & dresses in pastel colours, comfy pumps & sandals - and I respect that. I really wouldn't mind if I turned out like her.

We have a big family occasion coming up this week and I have been subtly trying to push my Mum in the direction of a suitable outfit. She told me this morning that she didn't have any luck in M&S (how can that be? I think they design Per Una especially for her) so ended up in the Eastex department in Beales. I am dreading seeing what she got - how can it be anything but awful from there? Especially as she's planning to wear black sandals with it and as it's turned nippy that means she will also be wearing tights .

I think colour is my Mum's biggest downfall. She does all the afore-mentioned Mum cliches - Rieker shoes, stuff from Cotton Traders, matching hideous necklace and earring sets, little rucksacks for days out - but none of them would be so bad if she wasn't apparently colour blind. She can see a perfectly nice jumper in a range of colours but always manages to home in on the Germolene pink, the custard yellow, the hospital waiting room pale green or the Queen Mum lilac despite me trying to encourage her towards something a bit subtler.

I do worry a lot about my DD talking about me this way already in a few years time but I try to keep my Mum firmly in mind when choosing clothes. If I am debating something (because I am of the age now where I do like to be comfy as well as stylish) I ask myself if she'd wear it and if the answer is yes then it stays in the shop.

JennaLemon I know what you mean about knowing what suits your body shape better after 40 or so. I'm mid 40s and feel I have much more idea than I used to have, however, my dd is actually really good at knowing what suits her shape - she is petite and dresses herself well, but she is also surprisingly good at picking out stuff for me too, even though I'm much taller than her. She is great with colours too, so I would consider what she said if she gave me clothes advice.

I am mystified as to why my mother wears pale 20 denier-ish beige/grey tights under jeans (not nice fitting jeans either)....

she must have a genuine flair for dressing/clothes.

My DD is 10 & she already cocks her eyebrow at some of my outfits which I think are perfectly stylish.
I had a rather natty little skirt & cardy ensemble on the other day for work & she said to me in horrified tones "God Mum, you look like the librarian, you know the really old one, you can't wear that."
Sigh! and I changed too

My mum was very much from an earlier (much) generation. She wore skirt suits and blouses, real jewellery, hats and matching handbag, shoes and gloves. She was a girl in the 1950s and had style. I'm a 1970s girl - enough said there really!

My mum has always dressed quite nicely, I used to nick loads of her clothes when I lived at home. There are some notable exceptions however and these seem to have crept in over the past few years. The standout item is probably a beige velour tracksuit . Also 'leggings' that look more like tights, worn with a shortish top so that it looks like she has forgotten to put a skirt on. Oh and the standard fascination with fleeces - she could spend HOURS in Millets

My Mum dresses quite nicely, and has bought the same items as me before (I even had to find her something on ebay once as she liked it so much). Colours-wise we're probably different - I tend to wear a lot of navy and grey (blame it on my old school uniform), which she would avoid, and she wears a lot of coral, which I would avoid.

Errr I'm 25 I always wear comfortable ugly shoes my mil who is late forties calls them "buggy shoes". I don't think they are pretty but very sensible when carting around young children I can't be tottering around on heels with a baby in my arms! I really like most of the stuff in peruna too. Dear oh dear. I'm off to purchase a lovely waterfall cardi iv had my eye on.....

My mum lives quite a distance away. DD1 (22) visited last year and mum tried to send her back with casefuls of clothes for me that she was getting rid of, but luckily DD1 was able to filter the bundle -- it was interesting to see what DD ended up choosing for me, definitely more youthful things that I would actually wear.