Sorry, meant to do the more insiding, and thought I already had. Mods, please do go ahead and fix the post if you want to.

I LOVE Alison Lurie!


The article doesn't mention her fashion book The Language of Clothes. ;-)

Which I have read and meant to mention, brujita!

Another interesting tidbit is that Vinnie Miner, a character in Alison Lurie's novel Foreign Affairs (which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 and which I highly recommend), underwent the same epiphany and transformation at 50. She'd always been a very plain woman and she decided she was going to cease making efforts to be fashionable and sexy. So she threw out all her makeup and half her wardrobe and stopped dyeing her hair, and found that it was the best thing she could have done because it made her look like a lady rather than a figure of fun.

That's a great article.

I actually hate to see a woman of over 40 or so slavishly done up in head-to-toe trends. She should have her own style by that age.

Argh. I have no style. Zero. None.

In all honesty, one of the reasons I went into science was that I could wear jeans and a t-shirt to work every day of my life (even if I became a professor) and it would be OK.

It's funny, I would normally characterize my self as not being very stylish, but looking around I notice that, even though I don't wear skirts much and never wear makeup, I dress way less casually than most of the women where I work (the exception being the woman across the hall who is trying to get one of the lawyers to sleep with her and is therefore maxing out the clothes every day). More formal shoes, no corduroy pants, better fitting sweaters and shirts. So I guess I'm fussier about my appearance than I thought.

I keep hoping that someday I will grow a sense of style and be like my grandma, in her seventies and still wearing pearls and dresses. It isn't hard to see the young woman who caught my grandpa's eye at the NCO club and made him fall so hard that he went to her house the next morning and asked her to come to the US with him as his wife. She reeks of femininity and style and I've never seen her in jeans. And then there is me-I am wearing jeans and a pink t-shirt emblazoned with Marilyn Monroe as we speak. Sad sad sad. I keep saying that I'll do better but alas....I am just too damn lazy. So I wear the same jeans I wore in high school and lots of long sleeved t-shirts. When I'm 85, I'll probably still be wearing the same damn thing.

As soon as my hair goes grey, I'm tinting it pink or purple. Or BOTH.

I have zero sense of style, and that is one of the reasons that I entered my chosen profession. I strongly suspect that as I grow older I will do away with the pretense of clothing altogether.

My wife is 63 and she shops in the Jr. departments of stores, mostly. . .and she pulls it off.

My mother took Alison Lurie's route several years ago, though I'd say it had more to do with depression :P She just turned 60, and she's probably in the best shape of recent years. But when we share activities such as our summer choir, I notice how she dresses. And it bugs me.

Please understand: I'm a terrible dresser myself, though that's mostly out of laziness and difficulty finding things to fit my particular shape. But when she wears the exact same shapeless flowered dress on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday... well... It's especially hard in situations like that, where I have a difficult time establishing my own identity as separate from hers.

(Also, I can't help but be horrified when she goes to step aerobics classes wearing garage sale sneakers that are two sizes too big. If she breaks an ankle, it will be TERRIBLY hard not to pull an "I told you so.")

She seems to enjoy working the "aggressively quirky" angle, because it means that she doesn't get judged by the same standard as everyone else. But I know how hard it is to be taken seriously, and I don't want her to fall victim to that. I wouldn't care so much, but she's spent the last few years trying to get a wider audience for her art, and she is acing herself out of opportunities because she's not ready to play by other people's rules.

Really, she's needlessly stubborn about something that would be so incredibly simple to fix. If she's anything like me, she realizes that being somewhat invisible/"weird" is a safety net. I don't want to live inside that safety net, though, and I wish she would see for herself how easy and rewarding it is to break out.

She's terrified of her own success, because it's unfamiliar. The only person she's hurting is herself... but mediocrity is comforting, and if that's what you call controlling your own life, so be it.

I have one style guideline that I hope will see me through every age and stage until I shuffle off this mortal coil. I've talked about it here before. It's WWKHW (for What Would Katherine Hepburn Wear)?

Between that, office clothes and vintage Western, I feel set.

My mother colored her hair for years. One time I went back to visit my parents, and her hair was lighter, but not a pure gray or white, and it looked really good.

My mother-in-law still gets her hair dyed. It looks good, but I'm not sure when she'll transition into a more natural look. Perhaps with her first grandchild, but we'll see.

I have been wearing suspenders for two weeks now, and I love 'em. I am never going back to a belt. I need more colors than just black though.

Not so worried about my clothes as my hair. It's pretty long and wild, even in a ponytail, which looks fine now but in a few years may make me look like a crazy hippy cat lady.

My style ranges from "librarian" to "slightly sexy librarian" to "librarian at the grocery store". And I am not a librarian. I don't know what I will do when I am older. I don't really have much to turn my back on, at this point.

One thing I will not do is wear yoga pants/workout clothes when I am not working out. You are fooling no one when you do that, ladies!

::is wearing yoga pants right now::

She made the right decision; she's quite beautiful.

Mom at 68:

≡ Click to see image ≡

MomMoonpie looks fab, and clearly is having plenty of fun, which keeps her young.

Janet, your comment totally cracked me up. I wonder if the person who wants to bag the lawyer knows how obvious she is?

I like Alison Lurie, and I think she looks terrific.

Aw man...I, too, have a pic of my mom on a camel - but not where I can post it! A decade younger, but still. Here's to moms on camels!