Unless you are young enough to look good in Primark clothes, you need to be able to keep up with whatever is fashionable, and that requires a reasonable level of disposable income.
That is so true. Even if you're not slavishly following every trend, your wardrobe will inevitably look slightly passé if you don't update it fairly frequently and many of us just don't have the money to keep doing that every few months (or the figure to get away with the primark versions!).
And, as I said before, simply the fact of particular styles becoming popular with women who are mums is enough to render them tired and outdated because mothers are somehow seen as intrinsically frumpy. It's unfair but it's true.
This article by Jess Cartner-Morley sums that sneery attitude up quite well:
The trouble is, these days, every mum at every school gate in the western world is working that look, only with less-than-perfect jeans, the high-street version of her Antonio Berardi jacket and a growing-out bob.
There was a time, a year or so ago, when school-run chic was having a moment, but the shine has worn off.Thirtysomething mothers loved the fact that they were wearing the same clothes as off-duty models ? but funnily enough, the off-duty models didn't feel the same way