midlife do’s and don’ts

Advanced Style: The Thin End of the Wedge

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in Body

For those of you who rant about ageism in the media, for those of you who are mad that popular culture ignores people who qualify for Medicare, for those of you griping about the way that the fashion industry has shut seniors out–I offer you example A: Ari Seth Cohen’s book, based on his blog, Advanced Style.

Over the past several years, Cohen has wandered the world taking photos of women and men who he finds stylish. Almost every day another photo brings another 70-100+ year old that is still invested in how they dress. His taste is eclectic. So is theirs.  Sometimes I see the most stylish woman and think, “that’s who I want to be when I grow up.”  Sometimes the outfits are more what I would call getups, but then I think, “if someone was a kooky dresser at 23, why should they have to change their style at 83?”

I started the blog–Ari Cohen says–in order to change people’s perception of aging and show that there is much fun to be had once you reach 80, 90 and 100 years old. Women often tell me that after 40 they have started to feel invisible. Throughout the last two months young girls have reached out to tell me that they look forward to growing old like the Advanced Style Ladies. Older women have commented that my photos have given them the permission to dress up and feel good about themselves. I am so grateful for the impact the book is having on everyone and have to give credit to my own incredible grandmothers. I know the ladies and gentleman that I meet have surely changed my perspective on aging and given me something to look forward to.

Cohen’s blog and his Ladies have become an acknowledged part of the international fashion scene.  Aging women are suddenly in style! The fact, of course, that the poobahs of the fashion world, the Wintour’s et al, are getting older is not insignificant.  Relevance starts at the top, after all.

True, it’s a niche market–which is what MidLifeBloggers and MidLife-Beauty are, after all. It is, however, for those of us headed in that direction, the thin end of the wedge to increased visibility and viability.  Now it’s up to us to carry on and make our stand.

Go have a look at Advanced Style, the blog, and come back here to tell me what you think.  What style do you plan NOT to give up as you grow older?

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Can We Talk: The Baring of Arms

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in Body

Every year I have this argument with myself:

Me:  It’s summertime–whee!–look at all the pretty summer clothes in the stores.

Myself: Yeah, look at how almost all of them are sleeveless.  You can’t wear sleeveless. You’re too old.

Me:  Says who?

Myself: Says all the fashion know-it-alls.  Top of the list of what not to do in the summer is wear sleeveless tops and bare your aging arms.

Me: Top of the list?

Myself: Well, maybe second, after Don’t Wear Short Shorts.

I tend to listen to myself in the early days of summer.  Until I get hot.  Then I start to rebel.  And I start to wonder, who or what am I saving by not forcing them to witness the exposure of my upper arms?

Why are the upper arms of older women considered so heinous?

  • Because they’re so flabby
  • And flaccid
  • And liver-spotted
  • And cellulite-dimpled
  • And, often, fat

How is it, then that sleeveless tops on overweight young women are not considered heinous?  Is it not the cellulite-dimpled and flacid that is the problem, but the liver-spots?

And what about men of every age who wear sleeveless tops.  Why are their flabby, flaccid, liver-spotted, cellulite-riddled arms not an offense as well?  Especially when you consider that there is generally a brush of armpit hair splayed out for the world to view.

Is this an ageist, gender-related issue?  Women must hide all aspects of themselves that may hint at the state of their reproductive capablilty.  If we are not to cloister our aging bodies in our rooms, at least we can save the populace from having to witness these signs of our uselessness to society.

Yeah yeah yeah…probably true, that.  But so what?  I have no desire to even try to change the cultural mores of the Western world.  Instead, I’ll change myself.

  1. I will wear sleeveless tops
  2. I will not judge the jiggly underarms of other women who are baring them.
  3. I will not envy those with taut arms (including Andrea Mitchell, and how does she do it?)
  4. I will not not view my image in the mirror with the critical eyes of the younger me.
  5. I will stop thinking, damn, what happened to my arms?
  6. I will work at forming a revised image of what an attractive me looks like wearing sleeveless tops, as opposed to the one I now have from years of nubile models.
  7. I will not give a shit what the fashion know-it-alls tell me I must or mustn’t do.
Except–I’ve just scrolled through hundreds of Google images trying to find one to illustrate this post.  At the worst, I found a couple of photos of the before and after of a young fit woman who had had liposuction. However, congenital batwings are not what I’m talking about here.
I found any number of taut arms, including those of our First Lady of the Biceps, Michelle Obama.  But pix of the crepey, slack, mustn’t-be-revealed in daylight older woman arms–nada. Which makes me realize how insidious is the nefarious and henious attitude my culture promulgates about my arms (and I don’t use those triple-barreled words lightly).
That in turn makes me realize I must double, if not treble, my efforts at # 1-7 above.  Especially #4.  And #6.  And, oh yeah, #7.
Where do you stand in the Sleeveless: To Wear or Not debate?

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