OK, she is 80. She also does not "do" online shopping and cannot use the internet so is limited in choice to mail order or what shops exist in her town which sell clothes (small M&S, TK Maxx, Tesco, Morrisons, New Look, Matalan). She is not short of cash.
Visited today and she was wearing the most godawful old lady mint green, acyrlic, zippy up cardigan. I said "Oh that's new mum, haven't seen that before" and she announces it's from the Damart catalogue. If you've ever wondered who buys the "comfortable slacks" and similar items advertised in the national trust magazine, that's my mum.
I don't expect her to be high fashion. Sibling and I often buy clothes for her for birthdays and Christmas, sibling recently bought her a striped breton cotton top which she appears to like. She obviously wants to be comfortable and I do get that. But there is comfortable... and there is the Damart catalogue.
I bumped into a friend of hers recently - similar age - wearing Adidas trainers, black trousers, lambswool jumper. Nothing high fashion or out there. My mum has very odd ideas about clothes and appearance (people over 40 shouldn't wear jeans, women over 30 shouldn't have long hair, if you were meant to have holes in your earlobes you'd be born with them, pop socks are a perfectly acceptable item of clothing) and weaning her off this abomination of a catalogue is going to be tough. Any ideas?