Fashion is ageless. We tell you that loudly and often.
That it’s all about how you style the trends as a 50+ fashionable woman.
And so it is. For most of the time. But then a trend comes along, or perhaps “returns” and we look at it at SoSensational Towers, and we all shake our heads, and say “No, not for us”, meaning not for even the most on-trend woman over 50.
We have to say, it is a very rare occurrence that a trend is so impossible to style for a mature woman that we dismiss it totally. Even ripped jeans could be made to work if really carefully styled…
Most of A/W16’s key trends can be adopted by the fashionable 50-plus woman – midis, military, luxe fabrics, sports-luxe AKA ath-leisure. But as the season kicks off, we wanted to mention three trends which are giving the team a headache: Pyjama Jackets, One-shoulder/One Sleeve dresses and The Pini Dress.
We’ll leave Pyjama Jackets till last. And just to be clear, we are not talking about what to wear to bed!
One-shoulder/one sleeve is an interesting one. It is what we and probably many of you who are over 50, knew back in the day as “a cold-shoulder”. But cold-shoulder now has a different meaning: now a cold-shoulder is a top, jumper or dress with a cut-out on both shoulders. We like cold shoulders for older shoulders.
The A/W16 version, not so much. It involves completely covering one shoulder and one arm, while leaving one shoulder and one arm completely bare. Daft, right? Especially if you don’t like showing the tops of your arms; you will not be happy having one bare arm. Or maybe you’ll be half happy. But we suspect not! This is one trend that, frankly, we’ll be leaving alone!
The Pini Dress is an old favourite. Hands up, who remembers The Pinafore Dress, as school uniform in the 50s and 60s and a meh trend in the 80s? Well now it’s back as The Pini Dress.
The old rule that said “if you wore it the first time around, you can’t wear it now” no longer applies. Thank goodness for that! The rapid turnover in trends would mean that all of us over 50 would never have a thing to wear!
So, even if you remember the Pini Dress, that is not a reason not to wear one now. Or perhaps we should say: that is not the reason not to wear one. Actually, if you have a “straight” body shape and you spot a Pini Dress that isn’t mini length, a Pini Dress could prove a useful piece for workwear paired with a crisp shirt or polo-neck, opaques and flat boots.
However, for those of us who do not have a “straight” body shape and with its slight St Trinian’s vibe, the Pini Dress is another trend we’ll be handling with caution or leaving alone!
As we said, we have left Pyjama Jackets till last. Because Jan loves them!
They are her hot favourite trend for A/W16. She remembers them surfacing on the catwalks several seasons ago (a revival, of course, from the 1920s) but it has taken till A/W16 for even the early-adopters of trends to wear them and for them to appear on the High Street.
Ok, we concede that the kind of pyjama jacket a man would wear to sleep is a bit daft, but Jan likes their “slouchy insouciance”.
As unstructured jackets or shirts, it makes them easy to wear alone now, while the weather is still quite warm. And even easier to wear later in the autumn under a coat.
A Pyjama Jacket worn alone with some statement jewellery (sorry, we mean without a jumper underneath; we imagine you’ll want to wear it with jeans) is a great and very on-trend party piece. With a jumper underneath, it works for daytimes and weekends; with tailored trousers and a jumper underneath, a Pyjama Jacket would even make a good workwear piece. So, a slightly daft trend but one which you can easily work and one which we will all be seeing a lot more of…
So what do you think? Are you going to add the Pyjama Jacket/Shirt, or Pini Dress or One Shoulder/One Sleeve Dress to your wardrobe? Do let us know if you would wear any of our ‘daft’ trends – do you like them, or planning to leave them well alone?
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7 Comments
I will avoid the Pini like the plague. I need no further help in looking like Mrs Overall.
Thank you for making us laugh Sarah! Totally get your “Mrs Overall” comment. As we say, wear with caution – but do we truly want to look like our grandchildren, never mind our children?!!
I think the pink could be flattering for 50 plus not clining to hide lumps and bumps. Unless you team your hair and make up well manicured to go with cold shoulder and pyjama jacket this could look lack style. The long evening dress would go well with a pashmina
Many thanks for your comment Jane. Hiding lumps and bumps is always good!
If this is truly for mature women , why are you not using truly mature models, i.e similar in age to Jean Woods or Iris Apfel ? I am sure there are plenty glamorous women over 60 you could use .
Hello Jo – welcome to our battle! We have been trying for a long time to get brands to use older models but as the Chairman of an extremely well-known brand, who’s market is 45+ women, said to me when I was in his office, “they won’t sell”. That brand uses models in their late 20s or early 30s. We have thousands of fashion products on our site – and it would be an impossible and never ending task to re-photograph on our own models. So we do what we can for our newsletters and blog posts; where the model is extremely young, we crop the images so that our site visitors only see the product on the model – not the face of the teeny bopper wearing it! SoSensational’s raison d’etre is to show our site visitors all the products that are available from high street to high end for more mature women – and that includes brands that they may not have thought about. We really appreciate your taking the trouble to comment Jo, and hope you can appreciate our dilema! Cyndy
Thankyou , yes I understand, such a pity and I think they are wrong in their thinking . Over 50’s have spending power, presumably they assume we are not so easily led into jumping on a fashion “bandwagon “. Just keep trying and thanks for a helpful and informative site