"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple."

November 22, 2014 7:00 AM

If you missed it when it first aired, you might want to check out the 2013 UK Channel 4 documentary Fabulous Fashionistas, which features six stylish, active women ranging in age from 73 to 91. If you're in the UK you can view the documentary here. If you live elsewhere, YouTube has some clips and Bust offers us a written overview. Michele Hanson has some pithy words on why she'd like to slap the Fabulous Fashionista commentator, and as a lovely little pendant on the topic of older women and style, here's a 2009 Guardian article by author Alison Lurie, "The Day I Threw Away Fashion".
posted by orange swan (22 comments total)

Hear Hear to Michele Hanson! I've a lovely friend who is a 60 something grandmother and always so well turned out, she's an inspiration to me. She got married for the first time in her late fifties to a very dapper gentleman she'd met on a motorcycling holiday. Yes, she'd bought a Harley for her 50th...
posted by infini at 7:13 AM on November 22, 2014

Wow, Daphne looks amazing.
posted by oceanjesse at 7:14 AM on November 22, 2014

Me? I shall wear red. Purple is a wee bit too blue for my skin's warmer undertones.
posted by infini at 7:14 AM on November 22, 2014

I shall wear orange.
posted by orange swan at 7:18 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me. - Jenny Joseph
wikipedia
posted by theora55 at 8:00 AM on November 22, 2014

I shall wear whatever I damn well please whenever I get up in the morning.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:33 AM on November 22, 2014

I liked the Michelle Hanson article and totally agree. When I'm old I shall wear jeans and a black teeshirt just as I have as a teenager, young women and now into middle age (I'm lucky enough to have a career that doesn't come with a dress code). It's not like I really see the wrinkles and grey hair when I look in the mirror anyway.
posted by shelleycat at 9:01 AM on November 22, 2014 [2 favorites]

Old women who don't give a shit about what you or anybody else think of the way they dress or act are awesome.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 9:33 AM on November 22, 2014 [2 favorites]

I love clothes, jewelry, and makeup, and refuse to go gentle into that good Alfred Dunner night. I'm also glad I live in an era where it's much easier to shop and find great clothes and jewelry because of the Internet. I'm petite, and grew up trudging from store to store to find stuff that fitted. It's really a whole new world out there - not just for older women, but for lots of us who are hard to fit or don't live in a big city with lots of boutiques and department stores and thrift shops.

I look at old family pictures and it strikes me just how matronly so many of the women looked once they hit their late 30's. I think I look younger and more fashionable at 50 than my grandma did at 35.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 10:31 AM on November 22, 2014 [3 favorites]

I think I look younger and more fashionable at 50 than my grandma did at 35.

Maybe that's what they mean by "50 is the new 35".

I'm 47 as of this week and rocking the purple hair and the engineer boots and the double-ear piercings and stuff I never thought I'd get away with when I was young (though I'm pretty boring compared to the fashion choices of youngsters here in Austin). The Michelle Hanson article resonated with me, and now I really want to see the documentary, but possibly with the sound off.
posted by immlass at 10:40 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Michele Hanson has some pithy words on why she'd like to slap the Fabulous Fashionista commentator...

Can we expand on that and simply slap anyone using the term "fashionista"?
posted by Thorzdad at 10:49 AM on November 22, 2014 [3 favorites]

Definitely will watch this later. I like this pulled quote:

“Style, as one gets older, is more noticeable,” Bridget says. “How I look is to do with my identity and the fun of it. It’s nothing to do with looking younger.”

Awesome.
posted by sfkiddo at 11:06 AM on November 22, 2014 [2 favorites]

Start wearing purple, wearing purple
Start wearing purple for me now
All your sanity and wits, they will all vanish
I promise, it's just a matter of time

I know you since you were a twenty, I was twenty,
and thought that some years from now
a purple little little lady will be perfect
for dirty old and useless clown
posted by [expletive deleted] at 12:19 PM on November 22, 2014 [3 favorites]

Thanks for this, it's great (I can't watch the full documentary, so I watched the entire Youtube playlist). I particularly liked the Alison Lurie piece. I'm 32 and for the past few years have been colouring my hair to hide the single grey streak that is slowly developing; a couple of months ago, I decided to stop colouring and just rock my grey! So I feel entirely justified and inspired:

This led to a wonderful discovery. For more than 60 years I had been a brownish blonde, first naturally and then artificially, and half the spectrum had been out of bounds. Yellow and orange and coral and pink made my hair seem dirty as well as dirty-blonde; purple and lavender made me look like a basket full of dried straw. Now all this was over. White and grey hair go with every colour, including white and grey. It is no coincidence that some feminists have adopted as a slogan the first line of a poem by Jenny Joseph: "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple."

posted by snap, crackle and pop at 3:09 PM on November 22, 2014

I too loved the Alison Lurie piece. One insight I appreciated: the signals people read from your clothing choices will change as you grow older, and neatness is more important for seniors (emphases added):

There was only one rule: we had to be reasonably neat. It may be true that "A sweet disorder in the dress/Kindles in clothes a wantonness" but in old age what it kindles is the suspicion that you are starting to lose your mind. Spiky, confused-looking hair of the sort that goes to fashionable clubs, ragged hems, and unravelling sweaters no longer look charming.

posted by spamandkimchi at 5:01 PM on November 22, 2014 [3 favorites]

I think I look younger and more fashionable at 50 than my grandma did at 35

My wife (58) and daughter (23) regularly borrow each other's clothes, and both look fabulous in them. Mind you, they both have a real sense of style, which is a lot more than can be said for me ;-(
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 12:38 AM on November 23, 2014

"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple."

Where I live all the older women wear purple. Then I found out that purple clothes are usually the ones with the biggest discount during sales.
posted by Marauding Ennui at 2:59 AM on November 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

Spamandkimchi: I appreciated that insight, too. I've actually thought of that with regard to how I dress. I'm a middle-aged, single woman who owns several cats. *g* Because of that, I feel I have to take special care to look, if not fashionable, at least neat, clean and in good-quality clothes that fit. The stereotype for Women Like Me is "frowsy and unkempt" with a lot of contempt and disdain surrounding it. So, to counteract that, I want to look good. This is not my main reason for loving fashion - I've always loved clothes and jewelry, just like all the women in my family - but I admit it's there beneath the surface.

(And I think Ms. Lurie looks great in her picture, with that big floppy hat.)
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 4:27 AM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I can't wait for my hair to finish turning grey. It is damn near impossible to get that color out of a bottle.
Not that I won't venture into blue now and then. Pale blue hair without having to bleach it to death first? Hell yeah.
posted by pernoctalian at 6:14 AM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I Shall Wear Midnight.
posted by SPrintF at 9:20 AM on November 23, 2014

I'm 49 and am currently sporting a violet streak in my hair, and a large, colorful back tattoo. Neither of which would have been comprehensible to me in my teens or 20s. So I'm another who aspires to constantly evolve her own style, without paying attention to whatever "society" tells me is "age-appropriate" at any given moment.
posted by Superplin at 6:22 PM on November 23, 2014

I can't wait for my hair to finish turning grey.

Me neither! *Wanting* to turn grey is an absolute revelation.
posted by snap, crackle and pop at 1:15 AM on November 24, 2014