There is a reason I spend so much time browsing upmarket fashion websites and it’s the same reason I buy Vogue every month – I’m not aspiring to £4,000 Chanel skirts but looking for inspiration. I have always maintained that we, the older generation, do not need a special shop just for us – to say that we do makes us sound “special” in the pejorative sense. There’s enough choice out there, for heaven’s sake, too much even, but if you’re enthusiastic about finding the right things for you as an individual you will need to invest some serious research time to get started. You also need to have a realistic “warts and all” notion of what your body shape is and what you actually look like. By that I mean what you look like now, not the way you looked 10 years ago, or the way you would like to look if only you could lose a kilo or five.
We all think we know how to shop but it is, alas, another thing that changes with age. Personally, I lack the patience for zig-zagging down the high street looking for something … I don’t really know what, but I’ll know it when I see it. I love shopping but I’d still rather not spend more time on it than I need to and, to be honest, it can be a bit bloody demoralising trawling through shops that are, for the most part, aimed squarely at people aged below 40 and stick-thin. I wouldn’t go into the shops targeting my own age group if you threatened me with strychnine and thumbscrews. And that’s without the exquisite torture of fitting rooms.
So, I begin with helpful “get the look” sections on websites like Net a Porter, Selfridges and My Wardrobe and, yes, Vogue. It’s true they’re expensive but what they do is give you trends hot off the runway and aggregate them into helpful groups – summer sheers, floral print, neon bright, leather, pastels, and so on. Sites such as Asos and Top Shop are so migraine-inducingly huge that I don’t go in without first having an idea of what I’m looking for so I can narrow my search by filter – and, more importantly, size. I know, for example, that I don’t like T-shirts that have a high round neck because they shorten me, so I look for a decent scoop neck that gets my collar bones out – what my nan used to call “salt cellars”. I’m short but not a size 8, so sleeves are often too long for me in bigger sizes – bracelet- or three-quarter-length sleeves are perfect. I like skirts but they don’t like me much since my waist started migrating when I turned 50, so I stick to dresses. I prefer natural fibres to cope with my “personal summer” moments. You get the picture – look at the expensive stuff, imagine yourself wearing it and if you think it will work set about locating something the same shape and similar colour but cheaper. Then you either click to buy online (and you can try it on at home) or go out shopping but you go with every chance of success and a reasonable idea that your object of desire will be available in your size. You have a plan.
Much as I love the convenience of online shopping where no one knows how old you are, or how muffin-topped or wrinkly, that’s part of the problem. Unless we older people get ourselves out there and get through the doors of River Island, HM or All Saints (and the rest) no one will know we care enough to go shopping in these places anymore. That’s why we feel uncomfortable – because we don’t see enough older women out there, anywhere, shopping with confidence and making raids into enemy territory for the stylish and fashionable stuff we like because if there’s one thing we do know, it’s what we like. I long to look up in Oxford Circus and see armies of middle-aged women storming the barricades at Top Shop. God knows, there’s nothing to beat the treat of a few lovely bags swinging from your arm after a properly successful shopping day and if we don’t get out there we’ll never get this revolution started.
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Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/fashion-blog/2013/apr/17/high-street-shopping-do-homework