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are you one of those moms that dresses too young for her age?
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Anonymous
| Unless you're Gwen Stefani or some other pop star, no one should be wearing a midriff baring shirt. And, I say this as a recovering midriff shirt wearer (in my young and thin days). |
Anonymous
| A neighbor is over 40 and wears cut-off short shorts and a fitted tank top all summer long. She is fit, but she dresses too young and its not attractive. |
Anonymous
I think it really depends on how one defines "too young." Cut-off shorts and a fitted tank top to me do not seem "too young"; to me, that just seems like normal clothing. I dress exactly the same now at age 40 as I did at age 25, 30, and 35, and I would never wear a midriff-baring top--but I wouldn't have worn it at age 25 either!  I still wear mini-skirts and think they are fine, regardless of what the fashion police might say. In fact, my summer uniform is usually a tank top and a mini. That is the same thing I would have worn at age 25, 30, and 35, and it is still fine. Now, at age 50, perhaps not...
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zumbamama
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| If you are ever in OC, CA, you will see the seniors in thong bikinis jogging on the beach. yikes! |
Anonymous
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Let's not lose the distinction between hip clothes and revealing clothes! Only some stylish silhouettes are especially revealing.
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Anonymous
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Who are we dressing for, really? Are we dressing to placate nay-sayers out there who have somehow declared from on high that anyone over 39 shouldn't wear a short skirt or spaghetti straps or set foot inside any store also frequented by young single women? Or are we dressing to please our DHs? Or are we dressing to please ourselves and look and feel good? What you wear might be affected by the answer to the question. I am 41 and fit and basically youthful looking (no wrinkles or gray hairs yet, decent if not super-slim body). While I certainly wouldn't mind if other women think "gee, she looks good" when I go out, that isn't really my audience, and it's essentially immaterial to me whether or not some DCUMers might think I dress "too young." I dress mostly to please DH, and generally, I succeed. I also dress to please myself--meaning, to feel like I am looking my best and am pretty in what I wear. Again, with that, I mostly succeed. Agree with PP that I am not now nor have ever been the midriff-baring sort, but a tank mid-thigh sundress, for example? Sure.
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Anonymous
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This may not be totally relevant to the topic, but it's tangentially interesting. Our college-student babysitter is extremely overweight--DH calls her obese and I think that might be going a bit too far, but she is definitely extremely overweight if not quite medically obese. She wears all the typical fashions of her age cohort--very short mini-skirts, extremely low-cut cleavage-baring tank tops, etc. (Never seen her with an exposed midriff, but everything else.) I think it is great that she doesn't let her weight deter her from being fashionable, and she probably looks better in those clothes than in some muumuu that some people might insist she wear simply because she doesn't have the ideal figure. In my book, if an obese twenty-year-old can wear a skimpy lowcut tank top, than a fit 45-year-old can wear the same.
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Anonymous
You're far too sensible for fashion! I've read that even during the Napoleonic Wars, the British used to express the latest design sketches and little dressed up mannequins from Paris through to London regularly even though all other trade contacts were cut off. I've read elsewhere that flour imports from the Continent were not allowed through, resulting in scarcity, so you can see the priority. You're up against a well established, though irrational, tradition of women going to great lengths to copy styles. Psychologists and sociologists have a lot to say about why this is. Again, I'll emphasize that the "no revealing clothes after 30" argument is different from the "no updated clothes that leave you vulnerable to the possibility of not being taken seriously after 30" argument. Sometimes, around here, it feels like a "no frivolity ever because we're serious professionals" argument. |
Anonymous
Amen, sister. If I can still fit into a size 27 pair of jeans and a tank top, who cares where I bought them or what label they are? There are a lot of heavier teens and 20's than I am, and I'm amazed at the muffin toppage out there. Just saying, I go by what I think looks good on me and partly by what I see in magazines that other 40 something women are wearing. If Demi Moore, Heather Locklear, and Christie Brinkley can wear it, why can't any other 40-50 year old who still has a decent body? |
Anonymous
This is my standard as well. There are many beautiful actresses out there over 40, and if they can wear it, so can I. (Talking about "normal" clothe they wears, not ridiculous Paris-runway creations that no one could wear ever outside a catwalk.) |
Anonymous
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Ok, first of all lets be clear here - even for thin little teens and twenty somethings, mid-driff baring tops are totally OUT. Empire waist styled tops and long skinny tees are much more hip and fashionable. Showing your belly these days is a unfashionably trashy as feathered hair and tube tops was in the eighgties.
Dressing too young or too old is equally bad. Seriously, ask your friends, they should be able to tell you it straight and, that is what girl friends are for in my book. Relying on your DH for fashion approval is a very, very poor idea (unless you are gay) and my husband actually does have decent taste but still... the truly fashioniionably dressed women of the ages never relied on a straight man for advice.
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Anonymous
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I think we're all in agreement about the things that are totally out of style for anyone (ie, midriff baring tops, and exposed thongs, etc).
But I don't think it's wrong to wear the labels a PP mentioned earlier (Anthropologie, Rebecca Beeson, James Perse, C&C, designer denim, etc) as long as they FIT YOU correctly. No one is suggesting dressing right out of Forever 21, but I for one wouldn't hesitate to pick up a pair of shoes, clutch, or accessories there, or even a skirt if I dared. Granted, no one is setting out to be made a mockery, but I think each of us knows when we're getting too close to the electric fence to get zapped, and retreat accordingly. |
Anonymous
Not the PP, but I think you misunderstood her--she said she dresses to "please" her husband, not that she relies on him for fashion advice. I took that to mean that she dresses in a way that he will find attractive and pleasing. |
Anonymous
I'm getting a bit tired of this straw-man argument. No one is talking about wearing midriff-baring tops--we are all in agreement there--so there is no need for a zillion posts repeating, "no midriff-baring tops." |
Anonymous
Yikes! Sorry, but that is most certainly not fine (fine being subjective, of course). If you are wearing a mini-skirt at 40 people are laughing at you, period. |