Sali Hughes on high street fashion for women over 35

[elotrolado]

Just read this - so true.

www.the-pool.com/fashion/fashion-honestly/2017/20/sali-hughes-on-the-british-high-street-dressing-women-over-35

I too long for those 'flattering frocks, neat at the shoulders, sleeves and neck, but with enough fabric around the middle to invisibly accommodate a bottle of red and more than 19 calories ...'

Just read this - so very true.

I've not bought anything new for about 6 months simply because I've found nothing I like - at any price.

High end brands seem to rely on you being at least 5'8 and a size 10 minimum. Trousers/Skirts are too long. Dresses have a waist where my hips are....

High street is crap fabrics/cut etc. and so "trend" orientated it's ridiculous.

Trying to find a simple, well fitting white shirt for example is like looking for the holy grail - same for a flattering pair of navy work trousers at the right length, a jacket that shapes and flatters rather than cuts off abruptly leaving you looking boxy.

And yes - sleeves.....please can we have evening wear with bloody sleeves - in fact can we have tops/dresses with them.

Whatever happened to classic, beautifully cut wardrobe staples? It's a huge gap in the market

I haven't bought clothes in YEARS.

I have loadsa money. I'd spend £££ to get what I wanted.

Nowhere is giving me it.

I like benetton- but they don't go up to my size 16/18.
I like Hobbs but find them a bit formal.

I am only 30. I am young. My friends are hip young things. Yet I go into Dorothy Perkins/h&m et al and I am hit with poorly cut, crappy quality clothes that look completely 'meh'.

I'm here!! Come take my money!!!!!!!!

I'm exactly like that Troll.

I'm lucky to have money enough to blow silly amounts on designer handbags and shoes the former I get much pleasure and use from, the latter I realise I cant bloody walk in and shamefully place with all their "friends" under the bed. I will learn this lesson... yet I struggle with clothes so much.

I've had a bit of success with Mint Velvet, Reiss and Jigsaw but it's hugely hit and miss.

Hobbs is either workware or occasion wear and nothing in between.

Boden is well - just too Boden, I feel like a walking bloody advert.

Joesph has some lovely things - if you are over 5'10 - and have cash to flash. At 5'5 I look like I've raided an "adults" wardrobe.

Aggghhhhh!!!!

I find it really helpful to see other suggestions so, in the spirit of sharing, here's what's working for me right this moment:
I think Uniqlo do the best collaborations. Got some great trousers in the last U range - heavy cotton and well made.

I was in head to toe H&M today - all work appropriate and not remotely teenager.

Looking forward to the Toast sale - yes I know they have a touch of the Cos but I find some of it very wearable, lots of natural fabrics and everything I've bought there has lasted years.

I'd gone off Me & Em but liking them again this season - though won't go near till the sales. They're rowing back from all the pussy bows, not too much frilliness and more colour. Admittedly I like khaki. 'Intelligent dressing' is still wanky.

Wrap Online keep sending me their catalogue. It's too floaty / boho for me but if you'd like Mint Velvet if they did more natural fabrics and less grey, it might be worth a look. ££ but decent sales.

I do think though that, if we really want to go back to pre-1990 quality, we'd have to pay a lot more. A hell of a lot more. I think we've completely lost touch with the real price of decent clothes. I'm not having a pop here - I'm as bad as anyone.

I nearly always find something I want to wear when I go to H&M.

You just have to be willing to take 4 different sizes into the changing rooms, and not be upset if the one that fits you is not the one you expected.

I think there's a bigger problem though Flo.

Even trying to throw £££ at the problem doesn't - in my experience - actually help that much.

You just widen the amount of crap you can sorrowfully browse.

I do nearly always also see things that I would not wear in a million years...

I think Flo and Darth are both right.

It remains upsetting to look through poor quality, poorly styled/designed clothes that cost at least some money and more likely than not are made under dubious conditions (disclaimer: ethical purveyors of clothes are available).

Channelling Floisme's helpful attitude, I would agree that Uniqlo is reliably good and decent quality for basics though they've stopped doing my standby Henley T shirts and cashmere V necks. Their jeans are okay too but they don't stock in sufficient depth so every time I click to buy, it's sold out in my very normal size. Their collaborations are brilliant, if you are waiting for the moment it launches.

Otherwise, I am lucky to live in a small, reasonably prosperous market town and my saviours are three small shops that understand their local demographic and buy to please them. One is high end professional and work wear (buy once and wear for 20 years classics); another is really good at T-shirts and smartish-casual dress up, and the third manages everything from very quirky old ladies to mother of the bride outfits. It sounds bonkers, but they all seem to do okay. And we have FatFace, DP, Crew Clothing and New Look too. It's a bit of a shopping destination but a really small town. I don't think teens like it though.

I'm not saying the current crop of higher end clothes are necessarily better quality. Some are but a lot aren't and loads of them are still made in China. I'm saying well made clothes that aren't from sweatshops don't come cheap. I think we'd get the shock of our lives if we went back to paying anything like what they really cost. I bought far fewer clothes pre 1990, even though, in real terms, I was probably earning more than I am now.

Oh and I forgot - I'm not too proud for Landsend. Nowt wrong with their basics e.g. T shirts and they wear well.

I think well made clothes are mostly just decent fabrics - I imagine that someone who can sew a hideous ruffle top can also sew a well cut t-shirt but it's the design and the fabric that makes the difference.

So if we nailed the fabric and added say 25% to the price to do so we'd go back to decent quality clothing. Doesn't solve the issue of designers thinking we all want see through dresses in lime green though...

That's not to say we shouldn't be looking for non-sweatshop clothes, just that I believe that the workers in those places are just as capable of making good clothes as bad ones!

I do agree with you floisme, I think I'm stuck in a price range that now isn't there. Trousers in Toast can be well over £150. I still think they should be around £80. But trousers in that price range, like Finery, are often just polyester and not all that well made. Toast used to fit me better when i was thinner and their styles were more woman shaped, but they've gone all Japanese boxy, which looks beautiful on a Japanese body, but not on mine. I buy bits from Brora, but they've been far less attractive in the last few years. More frumpy. I bought an Alexa Chung trench from M&S. Nice style, good price, but the sleeves were really short! I've never before had a coat with sleeves too short for me, they are at least an inch, and really two or three, too short. I am just under 5'8" but they fit properly on my 12 yr old who is five one. I wore it once so couldn't send it back, and I love the colour, but did no-one look at it before it went on sale? I don't have freaky gibbon arms!! Other than the Weekend trousers, I haven't bought anything new for over a year that works on me, apart from an evening dress from here www.nancymac.co.uk]] And another from House of Fraser in the sale. I can't (sadly) live my life in evening dresses.

The Oliver Bonas catalogue landed on my doorstep today.

Nothing passed the has more than one of the following test

sleeves, can I wear a bra with it, no weird cut outs, not cropped, natural fibres checklist.

It went straight in the recycling.

No thanks OB.

Aye, Landsend do some great basics. I'm disappointed that DS1 has outgrown their kids' range, now, but have bought him a load of their plain fitted tees in mansize, on offer. Hopefully, they'll last just as well.

Stuff for me has been more hit and miss and I'm less likely to snag myself a well priced, good quality, useful but boring top, now that I'm not shopping there, regularly.

I'm trawling through some of the names in this thread. Quite like some of the people tree stuff. How do they do for size? I'm a narrow backed, short armed, long bodied 12 that sometimes needs a 14 for frontage.

This wrap top is gorgeous but about twice what I'm willing to pay for something that will potentially get trashed by one of the boys or in the kitchen!
www.wraplondon.co.uk/fashion-WK32-SMWBL/shirts-tops/kit-blouse.htm

Me and Em reminds me of stuff I was picking up in Dewhirst's, 25 years ago.

Learning to make clothes has really got me thinking about the cost of clothes.

For example I've just made an apron dress which is quitesimilar to this one from Toast.

I paid £52 for the fabric (hand woven indigo cotton), £12.50 for the pattern, another £5 for thread, and there were also costs for needles and interfacing that were marginal. It took me roughly six hours to make because I sewed it slowly and carefully. At minimum wage that would be £39 or so. That all adds up to around £107.

That's cheaper than Toast but it's not that much cheaper. I didn't have to factor in profit margins, design and development costs, marketing and on-costs of staff. Of course they're doing everything in bulk with trade discounts

Posted too soon!

No doubt the Toast dress didn't cost as much to make as mine. But the point is we expect clothes to be incredibly cheap - and the two main areas you can cut costs are in fabric and labour. If you want well made clothes in good fabrics the sad truth is that someone has to pay - either the consumer or the people who make them.

That article is spot on. I am 40 something, I want to buy nice clothes but I hate clothes shopping at the moment.

I dunno. I'm 36 and there's SO MUCH I love on the high street and on ASOS etc that I could quite easily spend my salary every month just on clothes.
I would never wear a cold shoulder top though. Horrid!

My mum is 72, dresses entirely from high street and charity shops and looks amazing. Her favourite shops are H&M and Bershka.

This is why so many places are struggling or closing down. I am finding clothes shopping in the UK harder and harder every year as they try to copy America. I live in America. Retail clothing is just awful. Anything outside of mass production is extremely expensive. Meanwhile it's all made in china using Chinese women as the test models, who don't exactly have a figure that resembles the average Caucasian or black person, and some sort of plastic material (rayon, polyester and/or viscose).

Ephemeral fairy - my mum is a similar age to yours and finds clothes shopping very hard because she is small (like many women her generation). Most clothes swamp her height and the petite ranges are very limited. I took her clothes shopping recently and was surprised at the lack of choice for her height and shape (pear shaped). Even the tops in the petite ranges came mid-thigh, and the shop staff said other customers had complained about the same thing. Then if you are pear-shaped (a common figure shape in the U.K.) we found that to get the hip width the tops were so baggy they looked like potato sacks, and we're often in some garish unflattering print. After a whole day's shopping, we left with one top, that we weren't even sure about!

Wanting clothes on the cheap is definitely a big part of the problem. But a lot of the higher end high street isn't that cheap - Jigsaw and Whistles charge £120-150 for lots of their trousers and dresses. But despite the prices, they're still cheaply made, badly cut and don't wear well. I'm not convinced that higher prices = more ethical either. A lot of stuff supposedly made in the EU is actually 95% made in the Far East then shipped to Italy for finishing off, so they can give it a Made In Italy label.

So we have ended up with the worst of all worlds: badly made, probably unethical clothes at high prices