4 | fashion
Looking your best 50-plus and onwards Looking their best is important to women of any age. Forward 50 asks Personal Style Consultant Joanna Giles of Love Your Look how women 50+ can dress to look great and feel confident.
for your current body shape (which often also changes around menopause) and the modern ways to create stunning outfits out of fashion separates.
Depending on individual sizes What advice do you have for and body shapes, what types of women over 50 who want to garments are most flattering dress ‘on trend’ without looking for women in this age group? as if they are trying too hard to I believe every woman is beautiful. Beauty is not a particular size, shape, age or skin or appear young? Women 50+ often mention to me that they are worried about looking like ‘mutton dressed as lamb’, but it is actually a problem I rarely see. My bigger concern is that women sometimes have a tendency to veer too far the other way, and dress too old for their age, ‘mutton dressed as dead.’ To avoid this tendency, remember that Baby Boomers rule the world! Because Baby Boomers are such a large proportion of the population they are re-creating the rules for how women dress at 50, 60, 70 and beyond. Just look at what celebrities like Hallee Berry (50), Michelle Pfeiffer (58), Christie Brinkley (63), Helen Mirren (72) and Judi Dench (82) are wearing and looking absolutely stunning in. To feel confident about dressing well for your age group, choose a celebrity Muse to get ideas of the fashion looks you could try. It is important to stay up to date with fashion and easy to lose your confidence and get left behind. For a confidence boost and to keep up with current fashion trends that will suit you I recommend joining a Style Course to learn which colours suit your eye colour and current hair and skin colour, (these change as we age), which clothing cuts work
hair colour. Any woman, whether a size 6 or 26+, can look great in colours and clothing cuts that highlight her assets and quietly camouflage any problem areas. The first step is learning which colours suit you and which cuts of clothes suit your body shape. The problem is we are all trying to get a tailor-made fit from off-the-rack garments. The secret to getting a great fit is to choose garments that are designed for your body shape. This is based on your build, frame or silhouette. There are three female body shapes, Straight, Curve and Softened Curve, and each has unique assets and problems areas and comes in every size. Straights go ‘straight up and down’ with no waist or hips, but have great shoulders and legs. They feel conscious of weight around the tummy and upper hips (muffin top, spare tyre). Kate Middleton and MP Paula Bennett are Straights. They look great in ‘long lean’ clothing that defines shoulders and legs and bypasses the tummy, e.g. volume in top garments and fitted in trousers and skirts. Curves go ‘all-in-and-out’ and have beautiful curvy waists and upper bodies and a totally
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Joanna Giles
flat tummy (so are very rare). They feel conscious of carrying weight on hips, bottom and thighs. They suit fitted garments on top that cinch in at the waist and suit lots of volume in pants and skirts. Racquel Welch and Jennifer Lopez are Curves. Softened Curves have developed a little tummy after having kids or getting older. They have beautiful upper bodies (especially their décolletage) and suit top garments that have a wider open neckline and soft shaping at the waist. They suit relaxed trousers and skirts that hang straight but have a lot of fabric in them e.g. ‘drape not cling’.
How important is colour and what role does it play? Colour is very important as colours that suit you can make you look healthy and give
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you a youthful glow, whereas colours that don’t suit you can age you, making you look dull or even unwell. Your eye colour and current hair and skin colour determine what types of colours will suit you. The great news is that everyone can wear every colour, as long as they wear it in the clarity or strength that best suits them – and you don’t need to carry around a colour swatch to get a perfect match. I teach clients this Clarity Based system to help them use colour combinations to elongate their silhouette and make them look taller and slimmer. Half of us look best in clear, fresh, brighter colours at the light-reflecting end of the spectrum. (Bright and Light-Bright). The other half of the population is most enhanced by richer, light-absorbing colours from the duller
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