Fashion Over 40 – How to Update Your Closet
Learn How to Overhaul Your Wardrobe & Buy Less But Wear More
Sep 25, 2008
There are two kinds of women when it comes to fashion at 40-plus. Those who have lost their way and those who have found it!
Throw away any misconceptions you have that reaching 40 means twins sets and pearls, and granny knickers. Forty-plus is the time for a new fashion revolution – to feel confident in your own skin and to learn what works for your body (what every shape and size that may be).
Fashion in Your 40s
Your 40s can be a dangerous age when it comes to fashion. For many, it is walking a tightrope between teetering on the brink of mutton-dressed-as-lamb or looking frumpy. This isn’t helped by the majority of the fashion trends which hit stores, geared towards 20-somethings or skinny women with skyscraper legs.
Your 40s should be a time when women can enjoy themselves with fashion. According to British actress and style icon Twiggy, former “face of the ‘60s” model, and current reality show judge of America’s Next Top Model, “The great thing about getting older is you don’t have to do/wear/say anything you don’t want to.” Twiggy also gives helpful style and wardrobe advice in her new, down-to-earth style guide for women over 40.
Learn What Doesn’t Suit You
The first step is to learn what styles flatter your 40s figure. In her style guide, A Guide to Looking and Feeling Fabulous over 40 (published by Michael Joseph, September 25, 2008), Twiggy claims that turning 40 and beyond is a time for learning what doesn’t suit you, and building a wardrobe of those cuts and colors that do." It’s also about learning the way that cleverly selected outfits can create the illusion of a slimmer figure and accentuate your assets. According to the model, successful dressing is mostly about attitude, having the confidence in what you wear, knowing that it’s working for your body.
How to Overhaul Your Wardrobe
Anyone can overhaul their wardrobe. Firstly take a long-hard look at what is hanging in your closet. Analyzing your existing wardrobe is a good starting point, especially if you can enlist the help of a good friend, to give you honest advice. You will discover certain outfits will lift your complexion and suit your skin tone, and ones what make you look slimmer (and younger) by their color or cut. Something as simple as a hemline-length can make you look older, or give an outfit that “mutton” look.
- Try on your existing outfits and note how they work for your body. Does a particular outfit look great on you? Why? Is it the color, the type of neckline, the cut or fabric? Contrast this by looking at outfits that you feel uncomfortable or unattractive in, why? Soon you will have worked out some rules of your own for your own body shape. Think color, think neckline, think patterns and prints. Think cut of the garment, sleeve length and hem length. Just adding a pair of high heeled shoes can completely change the look of an outfit, from frumpy to feminine and flirty.
- Style guides can be enormously useful in this regard, helping you to categorize you body shape and giving advice on styles that flatter you figure.
- When it comes to color, a tip from designer Betty Jackson is to hold a garment right beside your face and compare it against your overall skin tone and eye color. By doing this it is possible to tell whether a color clashes with your coloring or enhances it.
- You might like to hang on to pieces such as black pants, white shirts, jackets that make you feel good but their frill or embellishment, shoulder pads or cut makes them seem outdated. The chances are that these fashion staples will come around again. This coming season; sees the reemergence of power dressing and shoulder pads and last summer’s fashions included the reintroduction of frills and bows, including the now-popular-again pussy-bow blouse.
Shop Smarter in Your 40s
When you have culled your wardrobe you now have space for new outfits.. This doesn’t mean rushing out to refill the space, but to take you time, do some research on what styles, cuts and colors suit your own particular body shape and only invest in pieces that make you look and feel good.
If you follow sensible style advice to invest in what flatters your body shape, coordinating items and go for quality rather than quantity, you’ll find buy less but wear more. It is a question of buying not what you like, but what likes you body and investing in key pieces which, when matched together, will provide you with a wider choice of outfits. This also involves shopping smarter, for example, waiting for sale time to buy a few better quality pieces, or resisting the temptation to buy something just because you like it, if it doesn’t like you!
The Capsule Wardrobe
Opening up a culled and carefully selected closet actually gives you far more wardrobe choices. You may have less but you’ll wear more. Your 40s and 50s is the best time to apply that much touted concept of the capsule wardrobe — investing in more classic pieces which complement each other, and making more use of fashion accessories to give a new twist to outfits — it works.
