What Not to Wear

What Not to Wear by Iris Carden

I saw an article shared on social media this past week, on what women over thirty shouldn’t wear.

Being somewhat over thirty, I was curious.  (In this context “somewhat over” means “rapidly approaching double that number.”) Sadly, women over thirty should apparently not wear anything fun, or practical either.  So no furs (real or fake ), no low-cut clothes, short skirts or distressed jeans, no yoga pants (no explanation of what we should wear if we’re doing yoga), no high heels or “outrageous” shoes, no underwear that doesn’t have structural support.

They went so far as to say fur was inappropriate because it was a youth-inspired trend.  Please don’t tell that nonsense to your grandmother or great grandmother. 

I don’t know quite how old whoever wrote the article thought thirty was, but when I was thirty I was still regularly wearing high heels, and many of the other things on the list (not furs, I couldn’t afford good quality fake fur.)

I have to confess that even while well into my forties I still wore heels regularly, now I’m in my mid fifties, I don’t wear them. That’s because I have arthritis. I’m sure lots of women my age still wear killer heels and look great in them, and I envy those women. I still like fun shoes, such as my favourite embroidered boots (pictured) which my mother gave me last year.  Apparently my own mother hasn’t realised I’m too old for pretty and fun things.

I’d like to suggest an alternate list of what people should and shouldn’t wear:

• Wear what you want to wear.
• If you have clothes that make you feel happy when you wear them, wear those a lot.
• Don’t judge other people for wearing what they want to wear.
• Ignore stupid published lists of what you should and shouldn’t wear.

That’s almost the entirety of my fashion knowledge. The other bit is I know how to make clothes I like.

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