Women's middle aged appearance, through the decades

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Televised aerobics was hilarious and awesome. Anyone remember the Twenty-Minute workout? I used to do that with my mom.

My first regular aerobic routine at home was with a vinyl record.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Middle aged women still look old to young people.

Of course! When I was 14, I thought 25 was old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did they really look “older” or are they just in styles of clothing and hair that are indicative, to us, of “old people?” People don’t tend to change much from what they wore when they were younger, so the clothing styles of, say, the 1940s and 50s, were seen on older women through the 1970s+ even as the “current fashion” changed considerably.

But if you took someone like my grandmother who was born in the 1920s and held on to that 1940s and 1950s fashion all her life, and transported, say, 70 year old her into the present day and dressed her like 70 year olds now - in jeans or pants, sneakers, and a zip-up sweatshirt jacket - and hair down and natural and not the “wash and set curls” - what would she look like? I think there would still be some different signs of age, namely her teeth weren’t that great as dental care was an issue for a lot of people of her generation when they were growing up. But overall I think we think people “look older” because they are dressed in the fashion of the time.

Gen Z says that about Millennials too, when they see our yearbook pics it’s “oh they look so old.” Because a lot of Millennials still, more or less, wear their hair and clothes kind of like they did in HS and now your average 17 year old associates those looks with their late 30s neighbors/teachers/relatives/etc. But to us, we look at our old yearbook pictures and just see teens.

This is the answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Granted, I’m refracting it through the lens of being young, but old people back then seemed to have a dignity and bearing that most people just don’t have any more. Along with our slovenly clothing, we’ve lost a degree of dignity.

You can take your dignity. I don’t want it. It’s just another word for over the hill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now that I’m 40 I wonder this a lot! If you look back even further the hairstyles that women had even in their teens and 20s were soooo aging.

I think media has increased people’s awareness of what you can look like and therefore made people more aspirational.

They weren’t aging but they are the hairstyles that YOU associate with older people. Because you only saw them on older people.

The hairstyle that you are wearing now will be considered very aging in 20 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Televised aerobics was hilarious and awesome. Anyone remember the Twenty-Minute workout? I used to do that with my mom.

My first regular aerobic routine at home was with a vinyl record.

Mine was a Jane Fonda video tape.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now that I’m 40 I wonder this a lot! If you look back even further the hairstyles that women had even in their teens and 20s were soooo aging.

I think media has increased people’s awareness of what you can look like and therefore made people more aspirational.

They weren’t aging but they are the hairstyles that YOU associate with older people. Because you only saw them on older people.

The hairstyle that you are wearing now will be considered very aging in 20 years.

DP. Long hair will probably never look “old”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Such an interesting conversation. Another aspect might be that 'aerobics' and working out wasn't really a thing for women until the 1980's. I remember how shocked people were when people like Jane Fonda showed up on TV in leotards! Again, I think it was the idea that women who weren't young weren't expected to be wearing revealing clothing like a leotard -- and in public! It was kind of scandalous! That's why they had things like Jazzercise and that other gym that was just for ladies. I grew up in the 1970's mostly and I remember all the moms seemed to have a pooch and to wear stretch pants. I don't remember either of my parents owning a pair of jeans -- but they were really conservative. Weird thing is that now that my mom has alzheimer's she seems to have forgotten how conservative she is 'supposed' to dress and last time I saw her, she had her eighty year old self wearing black jeans. And she looked good. And comfortable.

Televised exercise programs started decades before. Jack LaLanne was a household fixture on his show from 1951. And he wore those little workout suits. LOL
Jazzercise was huge in the late 70s with women, but you're right, working out wasn't the cultural hit until aerobics was televised. Though aerobics had been around for years before with women taking part at home or in gyms.

Yes! And Maggie the yoga lady on PBS - I thought she was beautiful with her long black hair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Televised aerobics was hilarious and awesome. Anyone remember the Twenty-Minute workout? I used to do that with my mom.

My first regular aerobic routine at home was with a vinyl record.

My sister just gave all of my family’s vinyl records to my teenager for Christmas and there was a Jane Fonda vinyl in there - I guess my mom had it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom looks younger now than she did in the 90s. I see pictures from my older sister's wedding and mine in 1998. The hairstyle and outfits made women appear much older. I watched the Martha Stewart special and same with her. There was a period of time where she looked much better than she did in the 80s/90s. Hairstyles got softer, clothes less frumpy.

I truly think GenX is the first generation where people look so much younger. I compare our ~50 to 50 of boomers and older and we look more like 30-40.

You don’t look 30. Especially if you’re Caucasian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Example: Alice from the Brady Bunch with long hair and contemporary makeup. Crazy.

https://www.instagram.com/eilamell/p/C0Jf-PQunw8/

OMG, this just totally blew my mind.

Well, they updated her makeup and smoothed out her forehead too, so it's not just the hair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a 1992 millennial with Silent Generation parents who in turn were raised by parents who came of age during the Great Depression. They had some very aging ideas about appropriate fashion:

1. You must wear sheer pantyhose, no bare legs, even if it's super hot outside.

2. Clothing cannot cling to the body. Nobody can know you have a butt. Awkward darts on shirts, though, meant it was a good quality shirt.

3. They loved synthetic fabrics because they grew up having to iron everything. You cannot wear wrinkly clothing, this is a sin as bad as having a crooked part in your hair. (This is also why they loved canned vegetables and frozen dinners, it was seen as a wonderful time-saving invention.)

4. Jeans are only for children and adults who work in the trades.

5. Hair styles were a big thing, as others have pointed out. You only wash your hair once a week, and ideally you get it done at the beauty salon with a wash and set. Overnight curlers were a total thing, with the perm being a big time saver.

If you just washed your hair and let it air dry? Slattern.

Also, short hair after a certain age (30) was de rigeur because long hair was viewed as aging. Bear in mind that lot of actresses had very short hair (Audrey Hepburn) so it was chic, just as we'll all be wearing beachy waves in our hair at the nursing home some day.

What did my parents consider sad, old people clothing? those 1940s victory skirt suits.
https://vintagedancer.com/1940s/1940s-victory-suit/

My mother often lamented that nobody wore hats and gloves anymore, and subsequently looked super sloppy. I guess we've all come full circle because I can't believe LL Bean sells jogger-style pajama pants that you can wear outside the house.

Those look like all of Kate Middleton’s outfits!

[Anonymous]

Really interesting topic.

Hairstyles are the biggest change, I'd say. Norah Efron said more than once in her essays that the biggest change for women was the use of hair color. It wasn't common for average folks until the 1960s with Clairol.

I think most older styles were really bad, too: short hair (but not interesting cuts), tight curls and tight styles, salon sets (like Nancy Reagan), or they kept their hair too long and wore a bun or braid. I think women were expected to control their hair upon growing up. I even remember my mother not liking my older teenage sisters' long, straight hair in the late 60s. Before that they wore shorter styles.

The other thing was that women used to wear dresses all the time before the 1970s. I know from my own body that I don't look great in a dress anymore because I don't have a youthful shape anymore. I look better in a separates now. Some women wore housedresses which were extremely unflattering. I remember my grandmother in the 1960s always wearing dresses which looked terrible on her thick middle--and these were expensive clothes--it didn't help. I would hate to have to wear a dress every day. She also had a kind of waved pageboy do, with her gray hair tinted blue! My other grandmother was super thin and wore skirt suits all the time, just to go out to the store. I never saw either in a pair of comfortable shoes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Really interesting topic.

Hairstyles are the biggest change, I'd say. Norah Efron said more than once in her essays that the biggest change for women was the use of hair color. It wasn't common for average folks until the 1960s with Clairol.

I think most older styles were really bad, too: short hair (but not interesting cuts), tight curls and tight styles, salon sets (like Nancy Reagan), or they kept their hair too long and wore a bun or braid. I think women were expected to control their hair upon growing up. I even remember my mother not liking my older teenage sisters' long, straight hair in the late 60s. Before that they wore shorter styles.

The other thing was that women used to wear dresses all the time before the 1970s. I know from my own body that I don't look great in a dress anymore because I don't have a youthful shape anymore. I look better in a separates now. Some women wore housedresses which were extremely unflattering. I remember my grandmother in the 1960s always wearing dresses which looked terrible on her thick middle--and these were expensive clothes--it didn't help. I would hate to have to wear a dress every day. She also had a kind of waved pageboy do, with her gray hair tinted blue! My other grandmother was super thin and wore skirt suits all the time, just to go out to the store. I never saw either in a pair of comfortable shoes.

Wearing tight ill fitting shoes mangled my grandmother's feet. She had terrible bunions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We all had kids a lot later too. There's something to be said for being 45 and a mom of toddlers vs 45 and a mom of college kids.

No offense but no one thinks the 45 yr old with a toddler looks young