Elle MacPherson was pictured wearing ripped jeans to accomplish the school operate this week and Mail online (come on, admit it, it’s a guilty pleasure) posed regardless of whether they were appropriate for her age or this particular job. The Mail didn’t see the jeans as a problem when J Lo performed in a pair at a concert in Italy last week simply because the spotlight is firmly for the school operate in the moment and what is deemed suitable attire for it with the likes of Stella McCartney, Elle and Claudia Schiffer under scrutiny.
Personally I believe Elle’s jeans worked fine. But (small one in this case) it was Elle. The issue with edgy clothes like ripped jeans and platform shoe-boots – and even fashionably ‘undone’ hair – on a woman of a certain age is that the impression you get from the back again is very various to the one you receive from the front. Yesterday, waiting at the college gates for a friend’s child, one mother turned up looking like she had walked straight off the fashion pages of Elle: skinnies, platform boots, black varnished nails and Louboutin studded black bag (a la Cheryl Cole).
It worked from the back. But when she turned round – sorry I’m going to say it – you got the shock of the life simply because, getting really evidently in her late forties having a gym-angular hardness etched into her face, she looked like a shriveled teenager. This was a woman who had chosen her bum more than her face: she most likely never has a naughty coffee, definitely in no way misses the gym and follows fashion’s form having a microscope. But she ended up looking like a too-try-hard ageing trendy.
This may be the issue I have with style: as the old guidelines of age have fallen away it’s become harder for women to interpret fashion and make it perform for their age and lifestyles. I’m always amazed at individuals who attempt to recreate a appear, garment for garment, noticed on the style pages or a celebrity when their way of life is not based around getting papped walking five actions from a private jet to chauffeured automobile. But that’s an additional debate. Point is, you need to know when you’ve reached what I call the Topshop T-shirt moment in life, when those small cap sleeves, ripped skinnies and studded boots no longer do the same point for you, and focus on getting stylish rather than desperately ‘on-trend’.