It’s Never Too Late to Look Great!: Style for the Young-at-Heart

Biography

Maggie worked as a newspaper reporter and commercial writer for many years before taking up a second career as owner of dress shops in Broadway and Stow on the Wold. From her home in the Cotswolds she continues to write about fashion, and is passionate about helping older women find their own individual style.

Copyright © 2019 Maggie Cox

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

Matador

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ISBN 978 1789019 780

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

To friends and colleagues who were so generous with advice,

and going in front of my camera. And to my husband,

who is still my husband, after endless pestering for

technical, computer related, answers.

Contents

GETTING STARTED

1How it Began

Stepping over Snakes

2Ugh!

What Doesn’t Work

3STAR Style

The Big Four

SURPRISE

1Wow!

Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane? No, it’s a Hat

2Colour

The Exploding Paint Box – Under Control

3Accessories

The Angel is in the Detail

TRUE TO YOURSELF

1Dress to Your Personality

But Who am I?

2Athleisure

‘Sporty’ to You and Me

3Relaxed Glamour

Far from the Hills of Hollywood

4Funky

How to be Craftfully Crazy

5The New Classic

We are Women after all

6Image

Clothes Tell Tales

ARTISTRY

1Easy on the Eye

Beauty not Bling

2Be Creative

On with the New and on with the Old

3Special Occasion Wear

The Gadabout

4Makeup

Has She, Hasn’t She?

REINVENTION

1The Wardrobe Edit

Hoard or Sort

2Attitude

The Awkward Brigade?

FASHION TODAY

1Too Much Choice

It’s a Riot

2Everything’s Casual

A Little Bit Undone

3Unstructured Design

Fit and Flare

4Designer Classic

Royal Chic Critique

WHERE TO GO

1The Joy of Shopping

Aladdin’s Cave

2Independent Shops

Places to Call Our Own

TYING IT ALL UP

1To Rebel, or Not to Rebel, that is the Question

The Legacy of Diana Vreeland

2Into the Future

Reasons to be Cheerful

GETTING

STARTED

1

How it Began

Stepping over Snakes

You gotta have style.

It helps you get down the stairs.

It helps you get up in the morning.

It’s a way of life. Without it, you’re nobody.

– Diana Vreeland

I was in the Amazonian rainforest preparing to go on a survival course with the Brazilian army, part of a cruise up the Amazon on the Swan Hellenic ship, Minerva. ‘Pull up your socks over your trousers,’ they said. ‘There’re snakes and mosquitoes everywhere.’

I looked over to Judith, one of our ship-board travelling companions. No socks. Pretty trainers and skinny jeans. ‘This is absolutely as far as I go. Flat shoes are bad enough. But socks. No way,’ she protested. Sockless, she marched forward to savour the delights of the jungle. And indeed, we all, including Judith, survived unbitten and unmolested by insect or reptile after two hours in the green, steamy heat of the rainforest.

Judith’s aversion to socks didn’t come as a surprise. Socks aren’t top of the packing list for a woman who is rarely seen in flat shoes. She wears four-inch heels for most occasions. They accentuate her tall, slim figure, and she has a pair for every outfit. She walks like a model, as well she should, because in her pre-Amazonian existence she had strutted the catwalk, as well as qualifying and practising as an architect.

Judith, the inspiration for this book on board her husband’s motor yacht, Vivace

Judith is a woman of style. Now retired, aged 76, she continues to wear beautifully put together outfits for every occasion, whether she’s cooking, entertaining, gardening, partying or crewing their 44-foot motor yacht across the sea from Guernsey where they live. How, I thought, could even a little bit of this style rub off on me?

Although I’ve tried to dress with flair throughout my life, I’ve always been impressed by women who seem to do the style thing as if it was as natural as brushing your teeth. Women who shine with confidence, knowing they look as good as they possibly can. And Judith is one of those women.

Next to Judith my number two idol is Cleopatra. The legendary Egyptian queen seduced Mark Antony, the Roman General, in her mature years. She was not conventionally beautiful but she was bright and charming. She probably spoke several languages, and was a brilliant conversationalist. This set her apart from other women.

As well as her positive attitude towards people and the world in which she lived, she was very aware of the importance of her appearance. For ceremonial events she dressed as the goddess Isis to enhance her authority, and for her coin image she chose to show a strong jaw line like her father. Shakespeare left us the memorable lines:

‘Age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety. Other women cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry where most she satisfies.’

How reassuring for us young-at-hearters today. Cleopatra was a mature woman when she seduced Antony in her late thirties (this was old in her time!), not conventionally beautiful, but utterly charming. And of course she dressed in a way that set her apart.

But what about those of us who don’t have good cheekbones like Cleopatra or tall, slim figures like Judith and have never learned to walk like a model? We less-than-perfect mortals, on the top of all this, have wrinkles and lumpy bits to cope with! Can we even get on to the style starting blocks? Yes, I believe we can.

However. We vibrant want-to-be-Judiths have a problem. Fashion culture is about youth. There is little for us over fifties. Style guides target the young, or if not the young, those who with some tweaking of diet, underwear, hair colour or botox, can fit into the young mould. Our culture rejoices in the young. ‘And why not?’ you may ask. In many ways this is wonderful. Young is energetic, attractive, and full of ambition. But this isn’t much help for us more mature women, whose knees are a bit knobbly, who are reluctant to bare too much arm, bosom or thigh and who can’t necessarily cinch our waists or squeeze into skinnies.

Mainstream fashion designs aim to be sexy, eccentric, brightly patterned, coy, even childish, with frayed edges and crazy silhouettes. We see young, pouting models in top magazines who look as if they need, but are banned from having, a good meal. Their clothes are often obscured by the noir, sexy image the photographer wants, and you know the frustration of seeing what you think is a great dress, but the image only shows the back – and in moody shadow. Seventy-year-old models do appear occasionally on the catwalk. But these are exceptions, and older women still face barriers in getting jobs, being authority figures – and catching the waiter’s eye!

The emphasis on youthful clothes is part of a wider culture that undervalues the old, and particularly older women. If we’re not careful we become invisible – and this despite the fact that there’re 12 million of us in the UK over the age of fifty, we spend £350 billion a year – and we’re more healthy and active than ever before. And we do not want invisibility.

We want, and need, to stay a part of the modern world. We want the gravitas of a well-paid job or the freedom to freelance and pick and choose, but above all, we want to take part in life, to be consulted, to work, to play, to enjoy. And to wear eye-catching, flattering clothes that bring us out of the shadows – not only a joy in itself, but, as you’ll find out, has lots of benefits for our well-being and self-confidence.

So let’s throw open our wardrobe doors – and tell our clothes they had better watch out. New rivals will be on the way if they don’t come up to scratch. We can’t compete with the giraffe-necked nineteen-year-old, but we can reinvent ourselves with clothes that flatter and make us stand out from the crowd.

But where to find new and exciting clothes? We read magazines, newspapers, see what the celebrities are wearing and just get confused. Advice is contradictory. Trends appear, are then rubbished. New ideas, new shapes, new colours, new directions come and go in a flash. Black is in. Black is out. Brown is the new black. Grey is the new black. Match your bag to your shoes. Never match your bag to your shoes. Skinny jeans are in. Bootleg is coming back, maybe. Pastels, yes, no. Brights, yes, no. Tight frocks are hot, not hot.

The clothes displayed in shops, catalogues and internet sites promise instant transformation. ‘Wear me and you’ll be on trend,’ they say. But we of the older generation can’t do this. We can’t put on the latest fashion garment and look good, let alone stylish. Short frilly skirts – too girlish. Frayed jeans, too teenage. Metallics – only good for Star Wars. Tightly fitted dresses – too revealing. Bright florals – save for the garden or curtains. What we want is to look like stylish, fashionable grown-ups.

The more we search, the more questions bubble up. What kind of outfits are we looking for? How do we know what things from the young culture we can still wear? Do we have to play down our previous ideas of dressing or completely rethink what to wear?

And what are we aiming at. What does ‘good style’ actually mean? It’s certainly not ‘fashion’ which is churned out twice or four times a year according to what the design doyens think will drive sales.

I still have a passion for clothes, and want to revamp my look and help others to reinvent themselves. But, as more sags and wrinkles bounce back from the mirror, is there a new style path I, and my contemporaries, should be following?

I’ve always loved bright colours. Do they have to go? I’ve always chosen unusual, edgy clothes. No more? Dramatic, or glamorous looks? Are they still appropriate? Can I wear purple? Should I blend into the background in dark or beige clothes, and keep my mouth shut? The latter, difficult, as my husband will vouch.

One thing I’m sure of is that I don’t intend to give up on style, and certainly not now, having seen how Judith dresses, and noticed the attention she gets when she walks into a room.

And I know that clothes are fun – the whole business of planning, shopping and wearing outfits. It’s part of our everyday lives, and especially exciting when we find a new shop – will there be something there to die for, or at least push our credit card to the limit for?

I also know from years of exploring what to wear, when you get it right, and you know you look good, you feel good. And if you’re having a bad day, a particular outfit or a flattering colour can give you a boost and actually make you feel better.

This is the challenge for us baby boomers. The only thing I’m sure about for the moment is that if you get it right, good style gets you compliments. Not, ‘Have you lost weight?’ (Subtext, ‘You look less fat than usual.’) Or, ‘You’re thinner,’ (meaning you look scraggy, or unhealthy). Nor do you want, ‘Have you found a new hairdresser?’ (which means your red streak looks terrible). Or, ‘You look fresh,’ (in other words, ‘Your eye bags don’t look quite so bad’). What you really want are comments like, ‘You look great,’ or ‘I love what you’re wearing,’ or ‘How sexy is that,’ (if that’s what you intended!).

I began by travelling around the Cotswolds, and later further afield. Whenever I visited a new town I devoured the high street, shopping centres and independent boutiques searching for inspiration. Up and down I went, round and round rails of too dazzling, too short, too frilly clothes screaming, ‘Buy me, buy me’ until my head was spinning, and all I wanted was coffee and a dark room. I knew many of the clothes are geared to the young, but there must be something for me!

Well, who would believe it? Masses of clothes, eye-watering choice, and all you come home with is a headache.

I started to think hard about the challenge of style for us young-at-hearters, and an idea began to take shape in my mind. I remembered how stylish is my friend Pauline Daniels, actor, singer and comedian. She’s a true star of the stage. And I recalled all the extraordinary women I’d met on my journey. They’re also STARs in the way they dress. They’re all Surprising, True to themselves, Artistic, and know how to Reinvent themselves.

They have the STAR qualities needed for real style.

Surprise

A stylish woman is surprising because she hits the button which says ‘I know how to be different.’ And she has the imagination to wear something unusual and not to be a fashion clone.

True to Yourself

Some of our personality, our true self – our likes and dislikes, what we do, or have done – is somehow revealed by how we present ourselves when we get style right.

Artistry

Artistry, or a touch of flair, is the ability to choose appealing outfits. If your choice of crazy hat looks like a hedgehog it might surprise, but not with admiration. It has to