Every morning, if we’re not staying in our pajamas all day (which we may well choose to do), we need to decide: Which items of clothing do I want to wear that day?
Last month, the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The New York Times, Vanessa Friedman, asked “What does it mean to ‘dress your age’?”
This question strikes me as pretty silly. Friedman used it to fill up space in her newspaper, space that deserved a less trivial topic. But I’ve decided to focus on it for a moment.
Here’s my question: When we decide what to wear each morning, are we supposed to focus on the number of years we’ve lived so far?
Balderdash!
My answer: Forget about your age! Who cares? “Age” is a number, but each person has an individual relationship with that number. Joe Biden at 81 handles domestic and global issues with considerable aplomb, and film director Martin Scorsese at 81 continues to direct outstanding films, while much younger people struggle with their grocery lists.
Your decision should mostly depend not on your age but on how you spend your day. Do you spend your day in a workplace? Workplaces vary tremendously, and your clothing should conform to where you work. A desk job in an office is very different from a job in a farm or factory setting.
Perhaps you work from home. Your choices will probably depend on whether you never see another human being or you do see others when you appear in a meeting on Zoom. And if you spend your day at home with no work commitment, you’ll want to satisfy your own goals.
Your decision will also depend on how your clothes fit and whether you like the way you look in them.
But dressing your age?
Let’s not forget that Friedman’s perspective is that of a working NYC journalist with an undoubtedly healthy income. While she mentions that “strict social or cultural rules about what to wear as you age don’t really exist anymore,” she agrees with me that “how you dress is a statement about who you are and how you want to be perceived.” She thinks “that changes as we grow up.” So she has “said goodbye to clothes I generally associate with my youth,” like hemlines above the knee. She’s now “gravitating toward long skirts…and wider trousers,” which give her “a swishy feeling” when she walks.
Exactly where is Friedman walking? Maybe that works for her, but I can’t imagine seeking out “a swishy feeling” when I walk. Negotiating city streets as I stroll through my neighborhood, I need clothes I can move in quickly, zooming through crosswalks without getting hit by careless drivers. [Please see my blog post, “Thank you for not killing me,” https://susanjustwrites.com/2021/08/.%5D
Even a New York Times fashion expert should get real. How many women want to get that “swishy feeling” when they walk? How many can afford to or even want to when they have far more important things to worry about?
From my point of view, it’s simple: You should wear what you think is comfortable and, if you like, clothes you think look good on you.
I never consider my age when I get dressed. I tend to choose clothes I find comfortable, eschewing anything that’s so tight that buttons gap and waistbands pinch. My go-to clothes are black t-shirts and black pants, which are both comfy and make me feel OK about how I look. Because I primarily work from home, sitting in front of my desktop computer, I usually don’t worry about how I look to others. When I do leave home, my attire depends on where I’m going and who will be there.
I generally try to “outsmart the bad guys” by wearing fairly worn-out and dumpy garb. [Please see my blog post, https://susanjustwrites.com/2021/08/06/outsmarting-the-bad-guys/.%5D These are just fine when I walk around my neighborhood. But if I’m going to be seen by people I know, I’ll make other choices. Still comfy but not quite so dumpy.
Women in my daughters’ age-range make choices that work for them. My older daughter has a hybrid working environment, part-time working from home, often appearing in meetings on Zoom, and sometimes showing up at her office. So she wears whatever suits the occasion. Her taste is impeccable. But she also chooses comfort as much as possible. My younger daughter works almost exclusively from home and invariably chooses comfort. But when she has an occasional meeting on Zoom, she aims at looking a bit more spiffy.
My teenage granddaughters, members of Gen Z, may be the only people in my life who “dress their age.” They’re dazzling in whatever they wear, but they tend to choose clothes their contemporaries are wearing. (Didn’t we do that when we were teenagers?) They also express their own style by wearing t-shirts and sweatshirts featuring a favored university, a city they’ve traveled to, or a popular band. On occasion, they’ll wear semi-glamorous dresses for major social events, but basically you’ll find them in jeans and a t-shirt.
Friedman concludes by applauding the choices of women of a certain age “who look as if they know who they are and are comfortable telegraphing that to the world.” She lists five or six Hollywood actresses, privileged women who can spend gobs of money on what they wear. Maybe they’re good examples of “dressing their age.” (At that level of privilege, I’d add.) This, Friedman says, means “making your own decisions about what makes you feel good, wide pants and all.”
Pretty much what I said, right? Except for the wide pants.
I’ll conclude with my favorite mantra. It appears on a button I wear and a plaque I display in my living room: “She could see no good reason to act her age.”
That goes for clothing-choices, too.
susanjustwrites
Susan Just Writes 