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You know how I hate so-called experts imparting their advice on us, trying to make women feel insecure and unworthy? Well yesterday I came across a book called "How Not To Look Old" which made me almost apoplectic with rage. It offered this age-defying advice for us over forties:
Hair: too short bangs.. too long hair parted down the middle… high hair…an updo… too dark hair… a solid block of hair colour… grey hair…
Now I'm a stubborn old bint, if I'm told not to do something I have to go and do the opposite. I went straight to the nearest mirror, grabbed a tail comb and parted my hair down the centre, then I headed to Boots for my usual box of raven black hair dye.
1960s Dollyrockers Maxi dress (£4.99, eBay), 1950s Scottish mohair cape (£1, jumble sale), fur collar (handmade by me), grey platforms (£5, local retail) |
Skirts: skirts that are too long.. too short… the wrong shape…worn with the wrong shoes…
This had me reaching for a maxi dress like a shot. Are we supposed abandon our style, set fire to our wardrobes and queue at Marks and Spencer for a knee-length skirt as soon as we reach the magical age of 40? What's the wrong shape anyway? With my scrawny, angular frame pencil skirts and pointy shoes do me no favours but who's to say they are "wrong" if I wanted to wear them?
If I look my age then so what? I'm 45 next week, I've got crow's feet, myopia, greying temples, arthritic joints and a total hip replacement. My face bears the scars of a life well-lived, I'm proud of every line, achieved by staying out all night, sleeping in my make up, boozing, lazing on an Asian beach for months at a time and generally living life to the full. I don't want to hide the fact that I'm middle-aged, I'm proud to have got this far.
Am I odd for finding Keith Richard's hedonism-ravaged looks far sexier than Sir Cliff's clean-living ones?
Bet I'm not the only one.
Am I odd for finding Keith Richard's hedonism-ravaged looks far sexier than Sir Cliff's clean-living ones?
Non-Brits can learn about Cliff Richard here |
Bet I'm not the only one.
I'm not ashamed of my age or the battering my body's taken reaching it. Better to have lived and lost it than never to have lived at all.