So what precisely constitutes Frump?

[linmanuel]

Inspired by the thread about cardigans
I am wondering what makes something frumpy

I think knee height boots with skirts like that are frumpy. Maybe because I just loathe that look. Also black opaque tights with anything that is not also black or at least very dark grey, clothing or shoes.

I have a real dislike of knee high boots alongside a knee length skirt as well. Again on a young person it can look edgy, on an older person dated.

I think I the PP is unfortunately right. Frumpsville vas it’s toe in unfuckable.and unduckable comes along with getting older.

*has it’s toe in unfuckable.and unfuckable comes along with getting older.

Ivornoidea. I think you are mixing up frumpy with anyone who dares to age at all.

If you are making an effort it isn’t frumpy. And as someone else said the skinny jeans look is ubiquitous and probably not high fashion but it isn’t frumpy.

Reading this it seems i am frumpy!
To be honest I couldn't GAF.
I'm 39, very slim so I guess I 'carry it off' more but to me clothes are to keep me warm there's no way I'd wear most clothes available now they just too uncomfortable and expensive.

I think I will go to the hairdressers soon though, my home made haircut is looking a little weird with a self done undercut and side shave

I think the word frump needs to go in the bin along with mutton.
I'll maybe accept dowdy as a substitute for frump...not quite so gendered.

My idea of frumpy is not someone who doesn't bother trying, but someone who tries quite hard in the 'wrong' sort of way. Like Cindarella's ugly sisters.
So it could be unfashionable, but also trying too hard to be fashionable and wearing things that just don't suit. Overdone and unflattering at the same time.

@justanotherneighinparadise

I’ve just had a quick google and this image is a good example of what I visualise outfit wise when I think frumpy It’s a good example of how a few changes can make a big difference.

@justanotherneighinparadise what a brilliant photo. I clicked on it and my first thought was "well duh, the frumpy woman is much fatter," then realised they were the same women!

I always thought frumpy was a middle age thing, it came from "a middle aged frump."

This phenomenon I felt came about [warning: massive stereotype coming up] when women had given up trying to be attractive because they were now mums and that was how they now defined themselves.

Personally I think frumpy is a feeling rather than a particular outfit or item of clothing.

And that feeling shows on the outside.

It might be there because a person has lost themselves, or has too much going on in their lives to give a second thought to themselves.

It is no coincidence that ‘frumpy’ is a label often bestowed on women who are of that age where they are juggling work, caring for elderly relatives and children too.

It’s not about fashion, trying harder or not caring.

Anyone reading all the replies will see that it doesn’t really mean anything because everyone has their own mental idea of what it is and it varies from person to person. Lots of people just use it to mean they don’t like something or it doesn’t suit someone. Others seem to bring age in to it one way or another, either because someone is dressing “too old” or they are too old and are dressing “too young”. Which feels like it kinda makes it difficult for women who are no longer really young to win really....I’m also not buying the “it’s an attitude” idea as SO many women in here get told something they’ve chosen is frumpy when they ask for an opinion which, by definition, they wouldn’t be asking for if they didn’t care about how they looked.

I think it’s lazy and often ageist and not really very helpful, it sometimes feels like the grown up equivalent of being called “sad” when I was at school- if you weren’t cool then you never bought the cool trainers because they couldn’t be cool once you had them. Personally I think it’s better to say an item of clothing isn’t well cut or that the colour doesn’t suit or suggest an alternative which might work better. “Frumpy” is just an annoying, nebulous and unhelpful criticism.

@PersonaNonGarter

You don't have to roll your trouser legs to whatever arbitrary length someone somewhere had decided is the right length for any particular year. Or tuck your shirt in to your trousers in a particular way (again completely arbitrary, however daft it looks).

This is quite a frumpy statement though? however daft it looks is your view of what a trouser length should be, there is no ‘correct’ length.

Fashion is the best guard against frumpsville.

Of course it's not a 'frumpy' statement, not sure how a statement can even be frumpy The point is that someone else has decided what length people's trousers should be at any point in time. And then people slavishly follow that.

The word itself is yet another way of putting women down.

So we've got :
Loose fitting clothes.
Tight fitting clothes.
Muted colours.
Bright colours.
Not trying.
Trying too hard.
Trying in the wrong way.

Jeez people, this stuff is meant to be fun.

The word itself is yet another way of putting women down.

So is this thread, there have been some really spiteful comments on here.

@managedmis

It has to be many things but all at once.

Fleece, glasses, hair scraped back, leggings, ugly pumps= frumpy.

Ha ha. This is me on my most depressed days doing school run.

I'd never considered it frumpy- it isn't.

It is the I can't be arsed/ scruffy / skanky look. Clothes often unwashed. And hair! These particular days are about staying alive not fashion choices !!

If I was aiming for frumpy I'd actually try and fail to look good. 😂

There's a mother at school who pulls off frumpy very well.

She's same age as me, dumpy (short and round), wears unflattering below knee length skirts in floral, some kind of blouse and a coloured fleece. The final cherry on the cake is a pair of those glasses that turn into sunglasses outside 😊

DD’s teacher is dowdy. Only about 40 but it’s all warty skirts in washed out colours, shapeless tops in Fatface/White Stuff style and baggy, bobbly cardigans. Jesus sandals on feet. The entire look is drab and colourless and droopy.

I don’t think it’s size related. A couple of mums on my school run are skinny but perpetually dressed in slightly too short jeans, fleeces and anoraks which is pretty frumpy.

And the hardest example to explain is DP’s sister who is mid 30s but somehow always gives the impression of dressing like someone twice her age. But that’s not quite what I mean as I know many stylish ladies in their 60s and 70s so the statement is a bit ageist. How to describe it? Lots of shift dresses in over big and bright patterns from places like Roman combined with too heavy eye make up, badly dyed hair in a colour and style that doesn’t suit her. Underneath it all she is an attractive woman but somehow gets it so wrong and the effect is frumpy.

I also think it varies from person to person. On me midi length skirts and dresses are frump central no matter how I style them but they suit lots of my friends and look very stylish on them.

*wafty. Warty skirts sound even more revolting.

@taybert I agree, but then we have the joy of needing to look classy as we age and the countless threads about that. I used to get away with scruffy in my youth, but at 45 scruffy now looks the wrong side of eccentric and my wild hair only looks passable if the rest of me looks presentable.

I'm 50 and I feel in danger of being unaware I'm 50. I haven't stopped liking clothes.I haven't stopped noticing fashion. I wear clothes that flatter me but with fashionable jeans. I know I'm not frumpy but sometimes I have to ask myself ''white boots again, what do we think jury'' (I'm talking to myself there). The reply was, ok, yes, you did them in 1981 so there's an exclusion clause to the Don't do a trend twice if you were so young the first time round that the item was bought for you by your mother in the kids section.

DD's sorted me out by persuading me to buy size 12 instead of size 16. I haven't lost weight, or changed shape, I was just covering up.

It is really difficult for those of us with big tits too. There is always this big fat lump on your chest which conspires to ruin the line of any top or dress. Clothes aren't generally shaped to fit big norks. Fat face has dresses with elastic panels, therefore I love Fatface as it is the only place I can buy a dress in 12, which also accommodates my HH breasts.

Hair is another issue. Great if you have long thick dark hair. Bad if you have fine, thinning, pale hair. There is nothing you can do with it other than cut it short and thence becoming the frump.

I think I look OK, but then a coding to this thread I am doing it all wrong. Oh, and I also don't wear make up.....cardinal sin. I think make up is ageing, another unpopular view.

Aaargh! I have this thread. Maybe people like their wafty skirts and fleeces. I like seeing people in cool/interesting/stylish clothes but equally IDGAF if someone isn't conforming to attractiveness standards. Which is what the F words means, according to dictionary definitions.

*hate this thread...

My approach to clothes is on here - couldn't give a toss.

I know I'm not frumpy, I get regular compliments from people much younger than me and more importantly I like what I wear.

Each to their own, the day I start ironing clothes and spending more than two minutes doing hair and make up is the day I've become old!

Just to add (having read another post) I'm in my late 40s so I know that some people will think that I am old, but I don't feel it and I don't dress it and I still act the same way that I did in my twenties (but I was probably old before my time 😂)

Fleece, glasses, hair scraped back, leggings, ugly pumps= frumpy.

Disagree with glasses @managedmis. Spectacle wearers don’t choose to wear glasses. They have to wear them.

I think dressing for your shape goes a long way to making you look stylish. My problem is that I often need something extra to keep warm as I don’t live in the warmest part of the country, so I end up ruing a nice top because I need a cardigan or jacket for warmth.

Frumpiness is really easily avoided by caring about fashion

I would replace the word “fashion” with “style”
Fashion is so transient. Style is timeless. I would far rather be described as stylish than fashionable. At my age (61) looking like a fashion victim would be tragic.

Fleeces with pictures of wolves on