Dressing fearlessly: throwing out the style rule book

rosesarered you clearly know me well - if only!!!
I just drape the wrap round my shoulders, fling one end over one shoulder and if I am not wearing my cross body bag under it, "anchor" the loose end with the strap of my bag.
Granted I don't walk Grace in it (Lands End Squall with poo bags in every pocket) carry shopping (well I rarely carry shopping anyway) or run for buses (ditto)
Maybe the years of wearing a scarlet gown at university instead of a coat have something to do with it. Recalling my youth??
Bottom line is, wear what *you feel good in* and what the Germans call "Geschmacksache" -a question of personal taste.

? Alea we are all tall willowy types in our heads.
I admire anyone who truly wears what they want to.

I like "Geschmacksache" A good juicy word to throw into the conversation.

My Geschmacksache as a non-driver in a windy city doesn't run much to clothes that drape and rely mostly on gravity. Neither does my figure.

No fur? I love fur. If I can't wear all my furry things, I'm going to stay in all winter!
I agree about the booty shorts, tho' - can't imagine why anyone would wear them at any age. Unless they're made of fur .....

Ooh ... fur shorts ... <imagines own belly magnified by close-fitting fur> <consigns idea to the realms of fantasy>

Garlic

One of the ponchos I bought is a lovely navy one covered in diamontes - I thought it would be great on the long haul flight we did but when on board I thought it was 'too good' for that and ended up wearing the £10 Matalan one that won't stay on. So I thought I'd wear it whilst away - never seemed to be warm enough to go without a full coat so that didn't work. Then it was winter here and nowhere to go in it so it's again in the wardrobe having been to the other side of the world and back and still unworn! I do love fur though and have a lot of that in various garments - there's not much call for wearing it in front of a computer every day though

Going right back to Garliccake's last email, at my tallest I was 5ft 4.5 inches. I am now 5ft 3 inches, and certainly not a 'high boned beauty', pretty ordinary looking to be honest. Yes, I am ageing well, but that is genetic, not effort on my part. DM, a very elegant woman, always said I could be attractive if I tried, the implication being that I didn't and wasn't.

I was fortunate to be brought up in a home where any connection between how you dressed and attracting male attention was never mentioned. As far as my DM was concerned you dressed well for self respect and self satisfaction, not for male admiration. This did give me a lot of confidence because it never occurred to me to think about the manifold judgements passed on women. so if they were made, and they probably were, I just didn't notice them. I spent most of my career working in the engineering industry, usually the only woman above clerical level and once the men realised that I could give as good as I got and didn't simper or cry, we worked well together. Of course there was the occasional sexist remark, but I just shrugged it off. The nastiest remarks came from other women, who resented seeing a woman in a senior position to them.

I might also add that I do not look down on anyone, but I will always challenge cliches that get rolled out without much thought about their accuracy or general application.

Well said M0nica!

I've been overweight all my adult life and my shape has driven what I wear. I do care what others think about how I'm dressed and know what suits me, so choosy about pieces from the current fashion. However, I've always wanted to develop a certain style like boho or something and make it part of me, but I don't seem to be able to manage this! I admire women who are disciplined when it comes to buying clothes and think about how a garment will fit in with their wardrobe. And what about the women who get rid of something from their wardrobe when they buy something new? I can't bring myself to do this.

I think I can honestly say that I have never dressed to attract men. I try to make the most of myself and my attitude before I was married was basically 'this is me, take it or leave it'. I was always the less attractive girl when I went out with my female friends, so never had high expectations of being asked out. But I had lots of friends of both sexes and all my boyfriends were my friends first.

I do follow fashion and the way I try to keep up to date is through my accessories. I can't see me wearing something just because I like it. I wouldn't feel comfortable or confident.

I've just ordered this week, three new pairs of shoes from Hotter, in the sale mind. So got them all half price. One black and servicable, one pink for spring and one pair of sandals in lime for summer. I also bought a long kaftan, some harem trousers, a boyfriend cardigan in wine colour and some new dressy trousers. So when I need to be more official I dress accordingly and then on other days I go for a more boho look which I love and I couldn't care less what anyone else thinks about it. X

I always wondered why boyfriend cardigans are called that?

so it looks as if it's really a man's cardigan?

Haha, it's quite a recent thing, isn't it, this boyfriend cardigan & boyfriend jeans, etc? I suspect it arrived around the same time as styles became more distinctly gendered - women's clothes are "supposed to" be skimpy form-fitting so anything slouchy or unisex must be men's clothes!

Pockets disappeared from women's clothes then, too

I can remember wearing my boyfriend's sweater in the 1960s and also buying a big beautifully warm mens woollen sweater.

Adult clothing has always been distinctly gendered, the move to unisex clothes started in the 60s when we all started wearing jeans and big sweaters and womens clothes have always included an element of form fitting clothes, mainly for evening wear and that has changed little.

Now both sexes and all ages live in trousers, I wanted a skirt this year and ended up buying it in a charity shop because there were so few in the shops but go round any chain clothing store/supermarket where the vast majority of women of all ages buy their clothes and 95% and possibly more, of the clothing on offer will neither form fitting nor skimpy. Look around when you go out, you will see a few girls tottering around on ridiculous heels and revealing clothing during the day, but very few. The vast majority of women whether high maintence and high fashion or not caring what they wear, normally wear clothing that is not designed to emphasise their sexuality.

Yes, Monica, but we're talking about what the fashion industry sees as 'feminine' and why it calls certain loose-cut garments "boyfriend". Not about whether you could find a skirt in a shop ... it's impossible to believe you couldn't find many, btw. Did you mean they were mostly too short?

Re "boyfriend " clothing. I imagine many of us borrowed an oversize sweater but do you remember the shirt advert, I think Jean Shrimpton wearing a man's shirt and nothing else with the dlogan
"Looks even better on a man"? Van Heusen I think.

Not sure whether your conment Monica about "wearing clothing designed to emphasise their sexuality" is descriptive or disapproving. The young women I see, admittedly probably friends of the DDs do in their 30's or early 40's look incredibly chic but of course, could also look attractive in a bin bag!

PS skirts aplenty from Viyella, Jaegar, CC, Phase Eight, Boden etc , you just need to know where to look.

If I had borrowed my DH's jumpers they would have reached my knees.

Aren't the clothes in the shops the product of the fashion industry? They are as near to fashion that most people get. It is a long time since I even saw the phrase 'boyfriend' used to describe clothes, if it is still in use it doesn't appear very often.

If you are talking about couture, then that is different, but what parades down the catwalk, which varies from the bizarre to semi-naked, is not what the women who are known to shop couture actually wear. That is very different, attractive, well made, expensive fabrics and in styles designed to flatter rather than reveal. Admittedly, worn by A - Z celbrities at award ceremonies they veer back to the semi-naked, but have you seen any of these styles being worn on the High Street on an everyday basis? I haven't.

Alea "wearing clothing designed to emphasise their sexuality" was merely descriptive. You describe women in their 30s and 40s, who dress attractively and look incredibly chic, and probably attract male admiration but that is very different from wearing clothes to emphasise their sexuality.

ps. skirts; Jaeger is out of my price bracket, Viyella and CC sell those drab mid-calf skirts I loathe. The Phase 8 I visited seemed only to sell dresses, I do like Phase 8, but not autumn 2015. Boden is mail order and although I visit online sites I rarely buy on line. Over 90% of the clothes I have ordered online have been sent back because of discrepancies in colour between illustration and actual garment, poor quality, or just not fitting or suiting and it is such a hassle repacking them and then finding time to get to a post office and stand in a queue or drive miles to a collection point. I did once buy a winter coat from Boden. It lasted one season, by which time it had lost its shape and had bobbled all across the front

I thought about a mini skirt, I have the legs and shape but I am in my 70s and even though I have aged well, I could only get away with it (just) if I wore it over jeggings, which wasn't what I wanted to do and I would always have felt mutton dressed as lamb. All of us have our boundaries and that was mine. Also almost all the mini skirts were aimed at young girls on small budgets. Cheap, cheerful and shoddy.

I thought the original 'boyfriend' fashion started in the 60s too and the film The Boyfriend with Twiggy was part of of it. Although the current fashion is available across all sizes, the original idea was to be seen wearing oversized or loose men's clothing like cardigans and really only skinny or slim women could pull off the look out of the house.

Men's jumpers were a bit different because they could hide lumps and bumps, but still looked best with a slimish face at one end and a decent pair of legs at the other (not likely to be attached to a big bum! ). I always looked like a lollipop.

I spent my college years in the 60's wearing boys' clothes because I was tall and they fitted better. The word Boyfriend was never mentioned, we just knew that the jeans would actually be long enough and you could pile loads of layers under a baggy boy's jumper. Looking back I don't think attractiveness came into it, it was all about warmth and dark colours that wouldn't show the dirt.

Boyfriend, to describe a style of cardigan, jeans etc is still very much with us and I read that description a lot, but have never really fathomed why they are called that, as the cardigans and jeans look like normal ones.

willow a poncho has a hole that you put your head through, why wouldn't it stay on?

Ponchos are great! nobody suspects you have your trusty Colt45 ready to blast them as you hiss" well punk, do you feel lucky?"

Well, yes, but you'd have to perfect the art of throwing one side of it casually out of the way before you actually producted your trusty Colt45 or you could end up looking rather silly...(in a Mr Beanish sort of way! )