'Edgy' older women...

[ProstituteHair]

Gah!

I know I'm about to start a thread I've started before but there have been a few comments in S&B this week about 'desperate' older women trying to look fashionable and 'I wouldn't listen to 60 year-olds', both comments to OPs who were favouring a fairly safe style of dress in their 30s and trying to shake it up a but feeling a little moribund.

There's absolutely fuck-all wrong with a safe and classic style in it pulls your chain. Really, I have no beef there. It can look incredible.

However, who's to say that the 30-year-old advisees know more about fasion than the 60 year-olds they were belittling. Some 60 year old have worked in the fashion industry for decades. Some 30 year olds have no care about fashion beyond looking respectable.

And that's ok.

But it's not age-based, and there's an absolute joy with older women and fashion, it can be much more unconstrained. It's certainly not desperate for older women to be edgy or fashionable, I'd argue that the truly edgy dressers are older women (or men).

And the young too.

There's space for both, I'm not sure why it has to be stratified along age lines.

People either love clothes and want to look incredible or they like clothes and want to look respectable, (or they think it's all complete bolloocks and just want to cover themselves appropriately for the weather, and that's ok too!!).

Not really. You need to make clothing out of something and each option may have it’s good and bad points. I think we make our own moral choices as to which we feel is acceptable.
But perhaps that should be a topic for another thread as we are veering away from the very interesting topic of this one.

I love looking at what people are wearing. I've no qualms about saying so too.

Me too, @NatashaDancing

Aargh I actually meant to add and "have qualms about telling people if I see someone wearing something fabulous"

I’d like to think I am that ‘edgy older woman’, in my 50s with no interest in looking younger than I actually am but looking the best I am now

I'm older (61) to be on mumsnet, but I find the conversations more active than on gransnet, although I'm on there as well with a different name.

Anyway, I've never been edgy, but more classic, and people have mentioned that I usually look nice. I try to keep up with trends, but not those that only suit those in their 20's or30's. So I have embrace wide leg jeans, but not cropped super wide high waisted pleated ones! I know my style more now and will wear what suits, not what's most popular.

I also think that younger people get stuck on trendy. Why else would everyone be wearing the same style of New Balance, when there are hundreds to choose from?

I cringe when I hear one poster tell another that something looks mumsy, or something my mother would wear. It's a snobbish attitude, and I would rather someone offer another item rather than just cut down someone's choice. I see lots of good advice here, but sometimes it's dismissive.

Let's all try to hold one another up, not knock them down.

What a smashing, balanced, and sensible post @mdinbc

I think there's a bit of learning to go around both ways here - older women get berated for looking frumpy and dated, younger women get berated for aspiring to trends, and mums get berated for, well, looking mumsy.

I think it's completely reflective of a generational shift and stereotypes in general. Younger women might see older women as "stuck" in their way/styles (another thread had someone boasting about having worn floral dresses since the 80s - I probably did too, but I was dressed by my mum as I was a little kid. I'm not sure this is somehow aspirational), and older women see younger women sheepishly following trends instead of reaching for their own styles.

This applies to everything in life; boomers=tech dinosaurs, being left behind, patronising etc etc, millennials/Gen Z = avocado on toast generation, lazy, SM obsessed etc etc

I find that opinions on fashion largely reflect the society at large - and this is why I find it fascinating. Bit of understanding both ways goes far.

*I also think that younger people get stuck on trendy. Why else would everyone be wearing the same style of New Balance, when there are hundreds to choose from?

I cringe when I hear one poster tell another that something looks mumsy, or something my mother would wear. It's a snobbish attitude, and I would rather someone offer another item rather than just cut down someone's choice. I see lots of good advice here, but sometimes it's dismissive.*

I mean isn’t this exactly what you’re doing though? You ‘cringe’ to hear that something looks older or mumsy, but you generalise that ‘younger people get stuck on trendy’ and all wear the same new balance trainers? Isn’t that a rather snobbish attitude that’s cutting down someone’s choice?

And there’s a pretty obvious reason someone might choose trainers or other clothing that are more fashionable/popular - maybe they’re not very fashion conscious or confident. So they choose to imitate something they see on social media/out and about because it’s easier to find an outfit and copy it than to try to put something together if you’re not confident about what looks good.

I've noticed this actually. I was watching some youtubers who specialise in talking about designer fashion and was thinking that some of their outfits made them look much older than they were.

I wonder if it comes from what the fashion was when you were young? I was a child in the 80s/90s so associated structured jackets and midi skirts with being for 'older women'. It's taken me quite a while to embrace the current fashion for midi length skirts and dresses because of this.

Some of us never had long hair to start with. I haven’t had mine long for 40 years. I’ve had every style and colour imaginable.

The generations didn't go straight from boomer to millennial/Gen Z, though. Just saying.

Indeed @bringincrazyback

I agree with this. I love clothes, and I spend any spare money on them.

Sure, but as someone in their early 40s (Gen X or millennial, depending on your view) I feel like I can't get it right for love nor money. Classic French style? Boring! Asking what is age-appropriate? Wear what you like!! Asking if I am too young to wear XYZ? Don't diss the old! Asking what trends are worth following? Don't be a sheep and follow trends!

Sometimes I feel that fashion choices seem to be for the very young or the very old and everyone else should just wear what they want to wear, but without being slaves to trends, or mumsy, or mutton dressed as lamb. Argh.

replying to Kanaloa - perhaps I am being a bit dismissive for younger people blindly following trends, but not 'out loud' or on this forum.

I would never tell someone who is excited about their new trainers/handbag/jeans etc, that their choice was ubiquitous or 'following the herd', but I often see someone on his form say another's choice is aging or old-fashioned or mumsy.

The difference, I think, is how blunt we are about it, throwing about negative remarks, or alternatively if we make other suggestions which may be more flattering.

I love a good fashion hunt, I love reading and learning about fashion, and mostly enjoy this forum.

But you still believe in wide generalisations about other people’s styles. Your idea that all young people blindly follow trends is the exact same mindset that has people thinking ‘x clothing item is mumsy/frumpy/whatever.’ You do it to younger people, so it can hardly come as a surprise that it happens in reverse.

And it does happen lots on here that things will be dismissed if they’re certain types of trendy items. That’s my point. Some people generalise about older people. You (and others) generalise about younger people. Both sets are probably wrong, because there are so so many subsets of fashion nowadays.

@bringincrazyback I was about to post that I am not an older woman, a younger woman, a mum, a boomer, a millennial or a zoomer, but my preferred style still gets plenty of slagging off on S&B 😂

another thread had someone boasting about having worn floral dresses since the 80s

The poster wasn't boasting- she was just stating a fact. I'm sure I had floral dresses as a staple from late 1980s / early 1990s onwards. Brands like Laura Ashley, Monsoon, Cath Kidston, Hobbs, LK Bennett always had/ have floral dresses.

I’ve always had at least a couple of floral dresses, going back to the 1970s when I was a small child. They suit me, so I wear them. I think the whole point of style is that it’s less about what we wear and more about how we wear it.

I love Mogzee_m on instagram. She's a bit in your face with her dancing around but I love the way she puts fashion items together. I came across her Instagram page via a "reel" on FB but couldn't resist on following her on Instagram (although this is the only reason I use this damn app), but I think she has a FB page also. The way she puts items and colours together, which I would never have dreamed of, is, in my opinion, really well done, and of course, she is of " a certain age" 😏. Anyone looking for inspiration may want to check her out. Oh, and I am 68 in October and will never stop trying 😍

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with anyone following trends young or old! I buy what I think suits me. Clothes are fun!

Aha! I had weekend guests and then busy days and this thread had gone a bit sideways so I'm really pleased to see it's back on track.

I think that some people are more interested in clothes than others and no age owns 'fashion', young people aren't by default more fashionable or better dressed, or indeed, more tapped into the general zeitgeist than older people.

I don't think they ever were really. Underground movements have been historically a young person's thing, but I'm not even sure how much underground exists these days as everything is around the world in a flash. To be truly underground you'd have to be analogue, and we wouldn't be having this conversation (I'm sure that they are out there doing their thing, and for that I thank them).

& @Pigtailsandall, what advice would you like? If you're asking if something is 'age appropriate' or 'too young', you will get those responses! I'm not sure that age is helpful when asking fashion/style advice, it's more about how you want to look and feel, 'What do I want to say to the world about me' is the question you should ask, otherwise it's just a question about how you should cover your body that's acceptable to the world.

I love me a bit of everything! 😂. I have some vintage Laura Ashley dresses (so well made and in natural fibres, mostly). I have a selection of coats from military style to tweed and patchwork velvet - vast majority second hand. I like a dollop of Lucy and Yak for the prints and colours. I have footwear from Converse to DMs to Veja trainers and back again. For me, getting dressed is a bit of theatre and a lot of being a child with the best dressing up box ever. Clothes are a bit of an obsession of mine and that’s sometimes read as vain or shallow as an interest, and no doubt my younger colleagues have bracketed me as dotty old bird, but I can’t control for what people think of me and I’ve given up trying. It cheers up my whole day to meet a fellow traveller with a love of interesting outfits.