Irony: Not on after 50
Cathy Horyn's New York Times article "Irony and the Old Lady" is subtitled "How fashion's clever twists fall flat when you're 50". It's essentially a riff on the "if you wore it the first time around, don't wear it the second", and specifically cites the outfit a bunny-eared Madonna wore to a recent Metropolitan Museum of Art gala. Of course Simon Doonan loved Madge: "Scandal"! Horyn asked Luca Stoppini, art director of Italian Vogue, why fashionable women can't wear certain things after 50. "Luca had the answer right away. 'It's like fighting with the wind', he said." There's nothing you can do about it.
When I see a woman over 50 in certain types of overdesigned shoes, anything with skull and crossbone pattern, porkpies, tights with legs in two different neon colours, or '70s concert tees restyled with studs, I recoil. Then I recoil at recoiling; I sound like my mother: "Can't you dress like a grown woman?"
On one of my last visits to her in Florida, I wore an Egyptian cotton blouse in a large print of a French breakfast table laden with café au lait bowls, flowers and a checkered tablecloth. It's not an ironic garment (I guess that would be a print of Gertrude Stein, strewn with roses), but it violated her sensibility: too 'unusual' and loud. She asked me to change before visiting a prospective retirement home.
She was much happier with my pool-blue linen blouse, but she missed the subversion of the yellow '50s alligator bag I carried, in fact, ironically.
Irony is defined as "an objectively sardonic style of speech or writing", extending this to dressing, irony may play with visual cues of opposition, contradiction and satire.Our beloved blogger sallymandy, who writes The Blue Kimono, recently posted this Sartorialist shot taken in Paris (in her entry "Mixing It Up"), and asked what we thought. Madame is wearing those denim overalls ironically, don't you just know it? But, given my more conventional eye (and her age), I want to say, Go home and put on some clothes that don't reference the Back Forty; I know you have them.
Dressing with ironic intent is best left to the young, who enjoy irony's cousin, sarcasm, and think their costumes are highly original. And sometimes they are, but mostly they're just a goof, a wink, a bagatelle.
Irony is a form of self-referential elitism: I get the joke, do you? I'm willing to miss the recherché humour, and aim for well, instead of ironically, dressed.
Comments
metscan: "Modern classy pieces" sounds to me like an excellent style summary with which to guide choices.
As for the overalls - irony is ok, but not with her formal face, dark lipstick on unsmiling lips and hair. That's the mixed metaphor that got me. And yes, she needs to head for the back forty. Where were we when she needed us?
I have nothing against people dressing however they want to. I just wonder if this whole mutton dressed as lamb thing (that I too worry about, I admit!) is dragging us down when we could instead be having fun with our clothing styles just like we may have done in earlier decades.
On the other hand, if I could find an older woman's style that was chic, stylish and non-frumpy, I'd definitely adopt it.
Am I a mass of contradictions?!
Sarah
And like you, am not interested in boring or sad clothing. At the same time, I realize things I thought looked great in my 20s or even 30s do not look good now (to my own eye); I look like I'm wearing someone else's clothes.
Who says you must "get fat, dress like someone who's given up, and wear hideous shoes"? I would not wish hideous shoes on anyone.
As for getting fat, I've always said women obsess far too much about weight. Beauty comes in all sizes and shapes. And with wrinkles.
Look around; you will see older women who are stylish and non-frumpy, there are plenty of us out there. Depending on your idea of what is 'stylish' and your definition of'older', exemplars above 50 in public life might include Isabella Rosselini, 57, Diane Sawyer, 64, Catherine Deneuve, 66, Phylicia Rashad, 61, Ellen Burstyn, 77, Vivienne Westwood, 68, Rene Russo, 55, Jane Birkin, 63, Helen Mirren, 64 and a favourite of mine, Anjelica Huston, 58.
We may not be able to afford their clothes but we can learn from their style and spirit.
I have seen women who look 20 from behind and 50+ from the front, and who cares if some guy gets a jolt? But if she is wearing teenager's clothes, and has a very obviously lifted face, she will look like a bit desperate.
The women I know of my cohort who dress in those are heavy-duty feminists, some but not all of them lesbian and wearing those as a badge of radical-feminist and/or lesbian identity. So counterculturalism more than irony. Not usually worn with dark lipstick, but who knows nowadays?
I have really mixed feelings about this. Yes, of course there are things we wore not only at 20 but also at 35 that we might not wear at 50-something, but I refuse to be "well-dressed" if that means not dressed with care and an attention to beauty but conventionally or corporately attired, as that simply isn't me and has nothing to do with who I am or what I do for a living.
These things are difficult, because middle-aged people in the arts have to deal with the pitfall of looking like the "mad art teacher" (a quote from Linda Grant's Thoughtful Dresser) or the crafty-wafty ladies discussed here a while ago.
Anonymous, I have the opposite "bad genes" from you. Practically no wrinkles whatsoever, and very nice skin on my décolleté, but have got fatter with those nasty hormonal changes (I don't mean obese or sloppy looking - I ride my bicycle for hours whenever I can, and every day that there aren't metres of snow).
Madonna is a performer, and her questionable taste is part of her act.
But of course Madonna makes me think of someone much sadder at 50 who has just passed away.
I admire women of any age who can style themselves in their own unique ways. Love the blogs such as this one who inspire me to be more adventurous, especially with accessories.
So I think the woman in overalls with the dark jacket looks fine, although being short I won't be copying this particular look myself!
Anyway, back to the subject. Sadly, I'm not really sure what irony in dressing means, but I know I am getting tired of judging people for what they wear (of course I do it anyway). I do snigger at people who still wear thier original looks from the 80's, or dress badly in a myriad of ways and I know I shouldn't. People really should wear what makes them happy.
I know a fifty-something woman who does not have a perfect figure or face. She wears good quality, simple and neutral colored clothing with slightly subversive accessories and hair. I think she looks fabulous and alive. I can learn from her.
At a big party I attended last night the women (all of the over 50) with some flesh looked far healthier, vibrant and sexy than the 'social x-ray' ones.
Northmoon: Ah, you take me back to the time when I wore suits like a man's, but with a skirt, and those stupid silk 'ties'. Thanks for reminding me how much more I like what I wear now!
Sallymandy: With your photo skills can you snap her sometime, oh please?
I thought I knew how to dress and put on 30 pounds this year and suddenly I have nothing to wear. Every morning it is a call for my Addidas capris or some Eileen Fisher pants. All my beautiful white shirts don't button any more and those with s t r e t c h are way beyond their stretching point. I have worn my daughter's ex boyfirend's left behind white shirt and it fits!!! But I don't want to buy new clothes.I just look longingly at what I had which were simple timeless white or grey or black with taupe and sand and a splash of color every now and again.Thank the gods for spandex and some of it doesn't look too bad with the old ballet flats and the capped sleeved shirts. I no longer feel put together though- but more like thrown together.Lol I so enjoyed reading your latest entry but can anyone please dress me step by step ....I am lost:)
The thing about Madonna (at least from my perspective) is that, unlike say Cyndi Lauper, who is no longer a girl but still having fun (with her clothing), she doesn't actually seem to enjoy her outrageousness. She WORKS at it. SO SO SO HARD! So hard she can't take a day off from the gym to enjoy a holiday with her children (according to the gossip columns, but perfectly believable). It makes me tired to see her strained face in pictures.
I don't know how one deliberately wears an attitude, but I think that's key. I know more than one woman of fifty or sixty plus who pulls off the crafty-wafty look, because she has the mindset that gives it a mesmerising witchy glamour, instead of looking like everyone's sad retired spinster drama teacher. The same goes for any kind of edgy fashion, at any age. Even younger women who don't OWN their eccentricity look a bit ridiculous, but a lot of people don't notice because they still look nubile and succulent, if silly.
Coming up on 52, I keep feeling like the Supreme Court - I don't know what age-appropriate dressing is, but "I know it when I see it." Or rather, I know it when I FEEL it.
Lately I don't want to look "cute." It's not that I want to look somber, but anything that's too "ingenue" just FEELS wrong. (As does anything too trendy. If it has five zippers and more than two pockets, I just can't handle it.)
Great stuff to think about!