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...?

Puffa jackets recently? In this weather?

I became a teen in the 70s and I was doing my degree in the 80s. I can tell you students were overwhelmingly wearing jeans and t-shirts or ski-pants with ankle boots, not looking the least bit glamourous on the way to lectures, walking across campus.

I opened the thread to agree with your title. Of course it isn't 'wrong' to want to look glamorous if that is what you want to do however your opening post is a completely different matter. Your criticism of people choosing to wear what they feel comfortable in says a lot about you.

Or maybe they just aren't that interested in clothes? Bit depressing that you think that if people aren't dressing in a glamorous or interesting way they must be wasting their youth or lacking in confidence. They could be making the most of their youth in loads of other ways that don't involve clothes! Clothes aren't the only way to be confident and individual.

It's hard for young people these days..They don't have much time or money for fashion. A uniform is comforting so they can focus on getting a job and keeping it in a recession.

I’m too old now to care if what I wear is in fashion (assuming I can find the sort of clothes I like). But I do find current fashions quite depressing. Everything seems to be shapeless and the colour of sludge.

Of course it's not wrong to look glamorous if that's what you like.

It is however wrong to criticize what others wear. I've never wanted to look glamorous in my entire life, even when I was young, I prefer to be comfortable and to wear the clothes that I like, and if they make you depressed I couldn't care less.

Is this a trend, there’s me been thinking everyone is going to the gym. I’m getting old.

I wasn’t much into fashion as a teen but had friends who loved it, loved second hand shops and markets.

Oh I'm with you op, I think it is drab but then I know what it's like to want to hide my body in big dark coats. Suppose each to their own but I feel the same I love glamour and vintage. Doesn't mean I want everyone to dress for me, just saying I like it before any gets the hump.

@Appalonia - well you obviously haven’t seen these students when they are dressed up for partying at night! My DD and her friends wear the joggers casual style uniform by day but oh my lord when they are dressed for a club or festival it’s full on glam!

My dress sense as a student in the 1980s was appalling. I spent a lot of time in jeans and hand knitted jumpers. I see younger folk now in a whole mixture of styles. And as it ever was, some are more stylish than others. I don’t think that’s a new thing.
Now that I’m older I have much clearer ideas about what I like and suit and have more money to buy these things. But my style is classic. I like higher quality clothes in muted colours . My idea of glamorous is definitely not brightly coloured or patterned things. So you are not wrong to want to dress in a way that you think is glamorous. But you are wrong to think everyone else will think it’s glamorous, and in fact other people might well think someone in “drab” clothes actually looks better than you do. Why be judgemental

I remember dressing as you describe in the 80’s.
I think we didn’t have social media then… which is a powerful force now. .. once you are in the leggings and puffer alogarithm it’s hard to get out ! Young woman don’t read Jackie and Cosmo anymore .
I think young people now are great though … much more environmentally aware.

Are you kidding? They buy heaps of stuff from Temu and Shein. They're addicted to tat.

Glamorous means different things to different people.
Some think that chunky brows, fat lips, mini skirts and stilettos is glamour.

I can't get upset that teens are favouring comfort over being tarted up and that high heels are fading into the past.

Yes, I was wondering how their environmental credentials were demonstrated.

Presumably by lecturing those of us who grew up shopping at army surplus and vintage stores.

@TheLeadbetterLife I’m definitely not disputing that young people shop on Shein/Temu at all, but I’m shocked at the people I know in their 40’s and 50’s buying absolutely unnecessary shite on them just for the sake of having it. One lady at work was telling us about her recent order, 4 neck fans (she lives alone but said she’d get a few in case they broke after the first use), placemats for the garden table (as though you couldn’t possibly just use the ones from indoors or even, heaven forbid, not use any!), solar lanterns for the garden - 3 packs because they were really cheap apparently, I can’t remember what else but I remember listening and thinking it all sounded like frivolous spending ‘because it was cheap’ 🥴
she’s not alone either, a couple of other people were also saying about things they’d bought from the sites. Just shocks me tbh and I like spending money - but not on crap!
We are very well paid by the way (and no I dont know their financial statuses but nothing they bought sounded useful to my mind!!!).
Neither of my young adult DDs shop on Shein/temu, they prefer getting stuff on vinted and are quite conscious of the environmental impact of fast fashion in a way I never was at their age. And cheap fast fashion did exist even back then.

Yes, people of all ages are addicted to tat, and a much smaller percentage of people realise it's a false economy, as well as killing the planet. The majority, young and old, couldn't give two shits.

I agree OP! They look like Lowry paintings. Although I’ve seen rays of glamour in certain places. Northern English cities for example. Liverpool. Leeds. Newcastle centres, especially on a Saturday night. Women who find joy in dressing up. Men doing their best to match them. Handbags and gladrags.

My northern working class grandmothers would never be seen without set hair and bright jacket and lipstick. Husbands in crisp shirt, dapper tie and jacket, even for a casual evening walk.

Many young men look slovenly these days. Not so attractive (and I’ve heard teen girls complain about this)

Nah, I don’t believe that a whole generation of young people aren’t interested in clothes. They are watching influencers buying hoards of beige shapeless shite and copying them instead of developing their own style.

Humans, on the whole, are very visual and so aesthetics have always been very important to us as a species. Whether we like it or not, people judge us on how we look, they treat you differently depending on what you wear, and what you wear can have an enormous impact on how you feel. Youth is the time for experimenting and figuring out what suits you.

When we were younger, we would be horrified to turn up in the same outfit as someone else. Now they all need an identical North Face jacket in order to fit in and not get anxiety.

I don't think you need to feel depressed about what other people wear. Personally, I favour a more casual aesthetic and what you describe above would not.give me.any pleasure if I was surrounded by it. One persons amazing is a other person's gaudy and too much. I love a.more understated polished/groomed look, but I rarely pull if off as I just don't seem to have the knack! I'm also quite plump so nothing hangs as nicely on me...
The great thing about fashion is that we can choose...no?

I have two teenage girls aged 17 and 16. One wears band T-shirts and jeans all the time. The other wears leggings and sporty T-shirts. I'm not bothered at all. Much rather that than shorts with their bum cheeks hanging out and crop tops.
They are who they are!

I was a teenager in the late 70s and early 80s and lived in jeans and teeshirts as did my friends, none of us shopped im charity shops, made our own clothes or were particularly glamorous it just wasn't a thing. I don't regret it either, I have stayed resolutely casual (fortunately never worked anywhere witj a dress code) and although I do have more of an interest in style and beauty now I have never aspired to look glamorous. I think young girls now by and large look lovely and better groomed than we ever were, thanks to hair straighteners, better quality make-up etc, mostly they dress in ways that suit them even if it is mostly casual and they look so much better in trainers than in the old days of jeans and heels.

I was at DD Graduation yesterday in Bath. OMG the female graduates looked so so glamorous - so many beautiful outfits and the Mothers too I took a mental note of the way some were dressed. Made me very happy to be part of it but back to drab black today 😂

It’s fine to wear what you want and it’s also fine for others to wear what they want. Your fashion sense isn’t superior, just different.

Oh look at you looking down at then youngsters of today. Perhaps there is more to them than just thinking about how they look.times have changed how you look doesn’t define people
anymore.