Is it wrong to want to look glamorous?

[Appalonia]

I've always loved dressing up, love wearing make up, beautiful colours and luxurious fabrics. I loathe the current fashion for lounge wear and sports wear. I was on the bus recently and it stopped at a university, and all the young pp were wearing dark coloured leggings or jeans with dark coloured puffa jackets. God, it makes me feel so depressed! It's like a drab uniform with no individuality. When I was a student, we didn't have much money, but we went to charity shops and found amazing things to wear and pp really made an effort. That's never left me and I love expressing myself through clothes and jewellery. Why do so many pp, especially young women just want to look so drab...?

Drab is unfortunately just the current fashion. But I do agree!

No.

The good news is that you can dress how you want to, and so can everyone else.

No it's not wrong.

Also it's not wrong for younger women to not want to.

Of course it’s not wrong! But it’s just not currently in fashion. It’s wrong to want to police what others wear though.
i’m not glamorous, wore jeans and a sweatshirt to the office today. I just wear what’s clean in my wardrobe when I come to get dressed 😂

Blows my mind. The teenage girls I know wear the uniform you describe and spend a fortune on skincare for their already-perfect skin.

But. I'm a middle aged woman. And when I was a teen the approval of my peers was what I dressed for.

I remember grunge style in the 90s. Wasn’t my thing but who cares. It’s just clothes.

Maybe because they are comfortable, or they want to blend in, not stand out?

You do you , but it's fine for them to dress how they like. I don't understand why you would feel depressed over what someone else is wearing.

That's so ironic! Maybe I'm just old. And why do I feel depressed when I see young pp dressed so drably? I don't know.I'm just one of those pp who is affected aesthetically by things I see around me. I can't help it. It's like looking at a beautiful painting or a sunset, it lifts my spirits.

Also, I was a teenager in the late 70s, early 80s and fashion was so much FUN then! I had tight green satin trousers, a leopard skin dress, red suede pointy lace up boots, a suede jacket, fabulous 1950s clothes from jumble sales, everyone looked amazing, and it didn't take a lot of money. It's all so boring now...

Your thread title is one thing.

Your post is quite another.

I agree.
But I was also a teenager in the late 70s and wore broderie petticoats, quilted patchwork jacket, shawls, tiered skirts, and clogs morphing into dungarees and then classic Sloane.

I grew up in the era of grunge but was more influenced by hippy style fashion. However, the clothing shapes in general were very ‘relaxed’ - baggy jeans and a baggy jumper were quite ok for a casual evening out - so it was a big shock to me when the body-con styles emerged! I rather wish that I had grown up in a different style era as I definitely had the figure for more form-fitting clothes back then…

Yes, the style now can seem a bit ‘uniform’ but also remember that the quality and availability of cheaper vintage clothing just isn’t the same anymore. As a teenager I could buy genuine seventies clothes with amazing fabrics and embroidery for a couple of pounds from my local charity shop and I don’t think that’s the case nowadays.

@RosesAndHellebores That was exactly what I was buying pre-loved in the nineties! 😁

Fair enough. But they're part of the same thing. I love clothes and I work hard to find stuff that I like. I go into most shops and it's so drab. And if you can't dress up and look amazing as a teen or a young women, then when can you...?

Not the point of the thread but I'm struggling with the concept of uni students in dark coloured puffas. It's been about 27° here for the last four weeks or so. Ours have been in spaghetti strap vests!

It is a bit of a shame that young people dress boringly (and are probably inadvertently ruining their skin with products)—they should be making us all wince with their boundary-pushing styles, not yawn.

Are there any style influencers in the mould of Molly Ringwald or Madonna these days? Even the grungies like Courtney Love and Drew Barrymore had a kind of DIY individuality about them. I remember the army surplus store being a staple shopping destination for me and my friends in the 90s. We'd buy cotton knapsacks and combat trousers and cover them in badges and slogans.

We learned basic sewing skills from our mums and nannas. I used to repurpose old things into new garments. A friend of mine cut up some pairs of old jeans and made a fantastic maxi skirt out of them.

I s'pose the older generations were more used to making their own clothes, and that fed down into Gen X and the older Millennials, but the era of fast, cheap fashion has killed all that. I see people on this board all the time lamenting that off the peg clothes don't fit them perfectly and I think, of course they don't! How could they, when we come in all shapes and sizes? I alter things to fit me better, and I'm not even a particularly good sewist—it's easy.

My DD can. She chooses not to.

Like them road men wannabes in there big coats and hats in the heat of summer. It’s wild!
When I see an old man in his 60s-80s in a suit, tie and shoes who is literally just doing a food shop or out and about it melts my heart! Because this generation in there 60s-80s will still be getting about in sliders and socks and hoody’s

You can dress however you like, but it's not on to judge other women by what they wear. And why is it "especially young women" that depress you so much? What about the blokes? Or are you not as likely to judge them based on looks?

I don't dress in leisure wear or dark colours but I'm not judging anyone who chooses to do so. A lot of internalised misogyny in this post imo.

Agreed.

No!

I work in a uni once a week and am often struck by just how gorgeous so many young women are. I'm sure my friends and I weren't as glowing and beautiful with such good skin and shiny hair. They could all wear grey sacks and look stunning

I don’t think wearing bright colours and dressing up is either ‘glamorous’ or ‘amazing’.

I would feel completely overdressed and conspicuous.

Young women aren’t dressing for you though, are they OP? They’re dressing for themselves. If you want to be enraptured by a sunset, go look at one.