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The Role of Age in Women's Fashion
NEWSLETTER
7/2/20262 min read
Age comes up a lot in women's fashion.
Specifically, what women are allowed to wear based on how old they are.
This one feels more and more personal. I'm at an age where I'm on the cusp of moving from being allowed to be provocative and sexy to being "too old for all that".
The rationales for age-based dress rules tend to fall into a few categories.
The first is changing bodies — wrinkles, sunspots, holding more fat on our bodies. But what is actually offensive about any of those changes?
I look at my mastiff, who has wrinkles literally bred into her. They are part of her charm. People adore them. I look at my own knuckles, covered in wrinkles, because that's how joints work. We find pudgy babies and puppies endearing — so we know fat isn't innately offensive. These are just societal constructs.
The second rationale is based on roles. This one goes deeper and is more complicated.
Roles do shape how we dress. A waiter, a flight attendant, a doctor — these roles come dress codes that communicate to other people what to expect.
But when we think of the roles of mother, grandmother, older woman — it gets more complicated. These aren't just societal roles - which are about external perception. They're identities. Something a person holds internally about themselves.
The expectations of what a woman wear based on identity tends come with permanent exclusion. There's a difference between contextual inappropriateness based on situation — it's inappropriate to wear a bathing suit to the opera — and telling a woman of any age that she can't wear a two piece bathing suit to the beach. One is about situational appropriateness. The other becomes about controlling identity and self expression.
Clothing is a big part of how the world sees us and how we communicate who we are to the world. In turn, it shapes how we see ourselves. It's a feedback loop to help us see our own image clearly.
Keeping a woman from dressing in certain ways starts to distort her own image of herself. It's the paintbrush we use to communicate our inner truth — to the world and to ourselves.
So when we struggle to figure out if clothing guidelines is reasonable, we should ask: is this based on roles or identity? Is it rooted in inclusion or exclusion? Is it situation dependent or a permanent exclusion? In the muddy waters of a history of controlling women's bodies and systemically removing our independence, these questions can help us see the picture clearly. And to feel brave enough to wear the outfit we really want to reach for, wrinkles, fat, sunspots, and all.
