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.

[b]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.

Anonymous wrote:A lot of it is style and culture. In the first year of Golden Girls, Dorothy and Rose were only 55 and Blanche was a year or two younger. They had old-lady hair and clothes, all of them. It was like they'd bought out a Chico's or worse. And had wash-n-set hair. I'm 53 and would never wear what they were wearing or style my hair like that -- nor would anyone I know (which is the "culture" I refer to, back then all women of that age would have dressed like that, or, gasp, aspired to).

Also, a generation or two ago everyone smoke and drank to excess and didn't wear sunscreen. So. YMMV on that.

Anonymous wrote:I think this isn't so much that older people in prior generations objectively looked older. It is that they looked older through the eyes of the youngest generation. This is about shifting beauty standards.

When millenials/GenX were tweens/teens, the style of 40s/50s was shorter hair and whatever fashion, so it looked "old" to us.
I think it would be a mistake to think that our teens/tweens today don't think we look old just because our hair is longer.

Anonymous wrote:I think there's a huge difference even between boomers and the previous generation. I look at pictures of my Grandma in her early 50s and she looked older than my mom does now (late 60s).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no desire to not look my age.

A mother of the bride should look like the mother.

I think it's less about not wanting to look one's age and more the fact that middle-age people naturally look younger than they did 30-40 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You were born in 1992 and have Silent Generation parents?! They were hella old when they had you, huh?

47+? That’s pretty old.

Anonymous wrote:Someone posted a comparison of golden girl, Rue McC and JLo, same age, then swapped their hair styles - wow, that short lady style was totally aging on both women!

Anonymous wrote:can someone please post an example of a "middle aged mom haircut" so I can be sure I don't have one...

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of women aren't doing the middle-aged mom haircuts anymore. But I know a couple and it's so aging on them. I don't really get why women do that to themselves.