Mumsy and Frumpy

[HelenSkeleton]

I hate the terms mumsy and frumpy and am using it for convenient shorthand. I don't know how else to describe it.

What makes people think someone dresses in this style though? It's more than wearing old fashioned clothes as there's stuff in the shops that look dated. Vintage and old fashioned aren't the same.

How do you avoid it?

To each their own!😉
TBH though I spent the majority of my adult life extremely obese and wearing whatever I thought would make me disappear.
Now Im thin, fit and so much happier and I want my clothes to reflect this. Its a chance to wear the things I was too afraid to wear before (but really wanted to!).
It should be about how your clothes make you feel IMO.
and I think fashion is much more broad then it was when I was young. Back then it felt like you could only wear one type of top or bottom and now it seems like we are allowing people more room to experiment, which is great!

I often find I love an outfit on somebody else and know I would hate it for me. I only think outfits look bad when you clearly CBA (and I appreciate that taking the kids to school or walking the dog is often a CBA situation but other times its nice to dress up abit!).

Me too, I also became obese and am slim again now and got lost in a sea of black stretchy clothes, so now I wear lovely stuff, and usually in pale colours, sludge as some would like to say, everything before was black leggings, navy leggings, big stretchy black tops. Anything to hide the fat. Now there is no black. I can wear clothes and they look like they do in the images for the clothes, for some reason my aim is always elegant, I’ve no idea why really,

if I’m honest I’d see you and admire your sense of style. Yes it’s not for me, as much as mine isn’t for you, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t think you look great, I probably would. We should all wear what makes us happy.

i think bigger people can look fantastic, the issue is when we are bigger we often feel bad about our appearance, so we dress to hide, to hide the fat, hide ourselves , to try to look smaller, to blend in. Which can result in looking frumpy.

Many of us have seen larger women rocking really stylish outfits. But I think many of us also dress to hide when we are bigger. To be fair it’s also difficult to find stylish clothes in larger sizes. And often when we do they don’t look on us, like they do on the model, so we feel disappointed when we put them on.

As said, i now wear a lot of pale clothes in lovely materials. Cream, beige, tan, olive, sea green, blush etc, prob as I felt I couldn’t wear them before, and if I’d worn those same clothes at a size eighteen I’d have felt I looked like the Michelin man,and stood out for all the wrong reasons, that doesn’t mean I think I’d think anyone else looked like the Michelin man, I’d prob think they looked great, but I felt that way about myself, and I think a lot of us feel that way,

You can absolutely look good when you're bigger but it's way more effort. Hair and make up really need to be good and its harder to find the right clothes.

What I have learned from this thread:

Wear what the hell you like and feel good in because whatever you wear, it's wrong to someone!

I was at Disney in Florida a few weeks ago and saw a larger size woman looking amazing. I’d say she was probably a UK size 20, or maybe bigger. She had long balayaged hair, a black vest top and then the most amazing pair of bright green Lululemon flared stretch trousers on. And trainers too of course. She just looked fabulous! I really should have gone up to her and told her how great she looked

I wear leggings under dresses to keep warm. You wouldn't know I'm doing it though because black leggings in boots look the same as tights.

" Plus if you go for something fo eat or drink at the airport you’re sitting there in a big puffer coat."

A lot of airport and planes have very strong air conditioning so are really cold.

Money does not buy you style! Lots of wealthy women have limitless pockets, but zero class or style.
Plenty of women wear lots of second hand clothes and make it work because of their personal style. You don't need to have ever 'worked in fashion' to have personal style or to look great in vintage/second hand etc.
You do need to have some understanding of fabric types, how colours and shapes work together, what works for your colouring and shape and to be confident in your choices.

Oh I keep thinking I’m frumpy !
Latest clothing purchases were 2 pairs of cropped cord trousers , one shirt , one Breton and one Fatface short dress ( V&A collection)
I was planning on wearing with tan boots .
Hair is coloured a fairly natural colour regularly, I wear a little makeup , get brows tidied but that’s all .
I am older , small , size 10/12

I fly for work every three weeks or so, I can assure you no one is sitting in big puffer jackets on planes, or sitting in the airport like that, they carry them if they have them, puffer jackets are bulky and really not suitable for this, yes planes can get chilly, but a cashmere wrap or jumper, which you can pick up cheaply is a way better option, you’d only take a puffer if you needed it at the other end, it’s also difficult to store in the overhead if plane is busy, or keep at your seat if economy as they are bulky. Doesn’t mean people don’t do it, but it’s not advisable. Onky someone who doesn’t travel much would consider it, or as said you’re off to somewhere really cold.

Actually I agree with this.

The way a garment is cut differs hugely between high end and high street/online shops.

There are stylists all over Instagram who wear Zara BUT they are always styled, accessorised and complimented by high end clothes. They are also always photographed in a certain position.

I follow an Instagrammer who highlights just how badly manufactured high street shops like Zara and H&M are. She literally pulls the garments apart (very easily in most cases) and shows how they are photographed on the websites versus how they actually look on real people.

I think that young, slim and naturally attractive women can wear high street and look well because their makeup is perfect, their hair is very styled and they are opting for being fashionable but the majority of us don't successfully pull off this look.

I agree. I have a friend who always looks amazing and she buys much of her clothing second hand. She can afford new but finds more interesting clothes this way and a lot of them are designer. She looks great in everything, but I know that I could wear the same clothes and I would look ordinary. She just has that certain sense of style but has never 'worked in fashion'.

I've also seen women who look great and well put together but shop in lower end stores. Once again, it's knowing how to wear things. You can buy all the expensive clothes you like, but if you don't have that sense of style they won't make you look fantastic.

I once overheard a woman say about another woman "She could wear a black (sheep) shearer's singlet and make it look stylish" - and she was right.

Oh I disagree. There is definitely a middle aged male frump look.

Polo shirt (ideally obviously synthetic and with some kind of sport/club/beer branding on it) polo shirt tucked into sloppy jeans. Jeans are baggy on the arse (due to lack of actual arse) and covered at the front by belly overhang. Scruffy sneakers.

There might be an equivalent 'look' but we don't have any equivalent (negative) word for it when men appear a bit lacklustre.

There is a much larger vocabulary attached to women's fashion overall because there's more engagement in the topic.

But I was responding to this comment: middle aged men aren't expected to do anything more than be clean and tidy rather than claiming there was a specific word for the look I was describing.

I agree with you. The fact there are more words for women doesn’t mean men are not expected to be stylish, fashionable, current etc, if that was the case many retailers would go out of business. Men’s attire, skin care, hair grooming is massive. Millions of men make the effort. Just as millions of women do. And millions of either gender don’t or don’t get it right.

i do think it’s somewhat easier for men though, as women have basically more choice.

the shops that sell the frumpy stuff, like mountain warehouse (which really should be kept for the practical only) or fat face also sell a male range. Just as unstylish.

Mrs Weasley.

Interestingly, I saw someone today wearing a Mountain Warehouse zip fleece, frizzy, badly dyed hair and no make up. But she didn’t look frumpy because she was tall and slim-if it were me wearing the same outfit with a topknot of frizz, I’d look a mess. Some people definitely have to put less effort in.

I have a friend who wears clothes like that. But because she’s young and thin and quite flat chested, she just looks like a quirky art student (she is). It’s the pillowy boobs down near waist level that can frump up nearly everything isn’t it 🤣

I remember as probably a tween that one of the local young women had got married and had a baby, and she turned up to an event in a floral dress and cardigan, low wedge-type shoes and frizzy hair (perms were popular then). She wasn't naturally slim and was carrying some baby weight.
She looked frumpy, especially next to her friends who were in jeans and nice tops.

Somebody taller and slimmer might have got away with it, but the look was 'I need to look half decent, and nothing else fits'.

(I feel mean because from what I remember she was pleasant, and she did have a young baby)

Yes and they've added that cord just below the bust line which makes the whole look even more matronly.

This is how Mary from Gogglebox dresses

I like how she doesn’t give a damn!

So unfair....tall, thin women have to really put the effort in to look frumpy whereas the shorter, wider ones struggle not to!😄

I honestly don't mind most things, I think you can find flattering cute versions of floral dresses, coats and fleeces. The only one I can't get behind is those padded puffa gilets. I just loathe them.