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Age appropriate dress for your chosen era?
- Thread starter Lady Day
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Paisley
I'll Lock Up
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MJrules said:
Some suggestions:
- Wear a fuller or shorter skirt
- Wear a knit or less-structured shirt (e.g., a peasant blouse)
- Wear bigger jewelry
- Avoid men's suiting patterns (herringbone, tweed, checks) and colors (gray, tan, navy)
- Adopt a "party" hairdo instead of an office one
- Wear cute flats or very high heels, not "sensible shoes"
mrswheats
One of the Regulars
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MJrules said:
Glad to help--I'm a complete shopping enabler according to my friends lol
*sigh* nope, haven't sewn them up yet, but they're in the "gotta get to those soon" pile! Right now, I'm stalled on my high waisted pencil skirt (too many hours at work and too little motivation). But soon!
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Paisley said:
lol
LD
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I sort of started asking myself this question while posting on the chosen era thread. I know that a 31 y.o. housewife in the 50s would've dressed differently from a teenager but I live in Denmark in the 21st Century and people aren't really used to seeing people of Asian descent and assume that I'm a teenager. Dressing in more mature styles usually results in me looking like lamb dressed as mutton to anyone else. My mother's even accused me of that!
When I first wore 50s retro styles they were the styles my mom and aunt wore as teenagers and I still look more the age they looked in their teens than I look like them when they were in their 30s.
The younger styles also appeal because of the relative ease and comfort as opposed to some of the classier, more mature styles I've seen.
Ideally I'd like to be able to swing one way or the other all depending on mood and what's practically possible on any given day. I'd also like to do both vintage and my own retro interpretations.
Surely all of this is a matter of personal preference or what?
When I first wore 50s retro styles they were the styles my mom and aunt wore as teenagers and I still look more the age they looked in their teens than I look like them when they were in their 30s.
The younger styles also appeal because of the relative ease and comfort as opposed to some of the classier, more mature styles I've seen.
Ideally I'd like to be able to swing one way or the other all depending on mood and what's practically possible on any given day. I'd also like to do both vintage and my own retro interpretations.
Surely all of this is a matter of personal preference or what?
chanteuseCarey
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Laura thanks for the link to this thread...
This has been a great and very informative read. I'm 50yo, so I'm much older than almost all of you who are writing on this! Nobody that knows me or meets me believes me when I say I'm this age. I was told recently by our Music Pastor that I look 42 instead. Shave off 8 years, hm- I'll take that!
Even some of the gents here on FL don't think I look fifty and I'm dressed in conservative, very modest 40s vintage for goodness sake !
Let's just say I'm working hard to try to age well
I don't want to look too old in vintage, but certainly I'm not going to dress like a young girl or a college age young woman -or like my DD who is almost 15, and has to find/create her own best style for vintage and for her modern clothes. A 25yo dressing in vintage doesn't dress like a 45yo in vintage and the reverse is also true.
I recently sent emails to a good Art Deco male friend in his 40s, with some pics of my vintage outfits that I have been posting here on FL. He'd seen me last in person when I was just starting out in wearing real vintage clothes- taking my first baby steps. I've come a long way in just almost 2 months! I've been researching, creating and refining my style and "my" vintage 40s look since. I sent him like six pics maybe of my vintage ensembles, including the ones with my newly vintage-fied hair styles, and some taken in my 40s eyeglasses.
Note: this man has been an Art Deco band pianist for like 20+ years- seeing all the gals of different ages and different shapes and sizes for years at events dressed in amazing authentic vintage clothes. He's a world class ragtime pianist, playing at festivals. He is almost always dressed in vintage attire himself. He has a love for old movies like I do. He even plays accompaniment at a 1920's theater to silent films.
For my own vintage style its very important to me that I get not only women's opinions but the male perspective on this. Perhaps even more so, as maybe the guys are more objective, and have preconceived notions about women and how they dress.
A favorite comment about my vintage style came from FL male member Paddy who said I was "a classy dame and that's a fact!"
Without telling my friend what my "look" was, here below is what he wrote me back after seeing the pictures. And I quote:
"Dear Carey, Thanks for the new batch of great pictures. I certainly enjoy seeing your transformation into your true self - a fun-loving, dignified, impossibly rich heiress from a 1939 Paramount film."
If that is what is said about me, and especially by men who are knowledgeable about vintage- then I'm succeeding in what is "age appropriate dress for your chosen era", and in my own vintage journey I'm "getting" it right.
My husband btw is delighted and at the same time bemused by my vintage look, as is our almost 13yo son. He thinks Mom looks great dressed in her vintage.
This has been a great and very informative read. I'm 50yo, so I'm much older than almost all of you who are writing on this! Nobody that knows me or meets me believes me when I say I'm this age. I was told recently by our Music Pastor that I look 42 instead. Shave off 8 years, hm- I'll take that!
Even some of the gents here on FL don't think I look fifty and I'm dressed in conservative, very modest 40s vintage for goodness sake !
Let's just say I'm working hard to try to age well
I don't want to look too old in vintage, but certainly I'm not going to dress like a young girl or a college age young woman -or like my DD who is almost 15, and has to find/create her own best style for vintage and for her modern clothes. A 25yo dressing in vintage doesn't dress like a 45yo in vintage and the reverse is also true.
I recently sent emails to a good Art Deco male friend in his 40s, with some pics of my vintage outfits that I have been posting here on FL. He'd seen me last in person when I was just starting out in wearing real vintage clothes- taking my first baby steps. I've come a long way in just almost 2 months! I've been researching, creating and refining my style and "my" vintage 40s look since. I sent him like six pics maybe of my vintage ensembles, including the ones with my newly vintage-fied hair styles, and some taken in my 40s eyeglasses.
Note: this man has been an Art Deco band pianist for like 20+ years- seeing all the gals of different ages and different shapes and sizes for years at events dressed in amazing authentic vintage clothes. He's a world class ragtime pianist, playing at festivals. He is almost always dressed in vintage attire himself. He has a love for old movies like I do. He even plays accompaniment at a 1920's theater to silent films.
For my own vintage style its very important to me that I get not only women's opinions but the male perspective on this. Perhaps even more so, as maybe the guys are more objective, and have preconceived notions about women and how they dress.
A favorite comment about my vintage style came from FL male member Paddy who said I was "a classy dame and that's a fact!"
Without telling my friend what my "look" was, here below is what he wrote me back after seeing the pictures. And I quote:
"Dear Carey, Thanks for the new batch of great pictures. I certainly enjoy seeing your transformation into your true self - a fun-loving, dignified, impossibly rich heiress from a 1939 Paramount film."
If that is what is said about me, and especially by men who are knowledgeable about vintage- then I'm succeeding in what is "age appropriate dress for your chosen era", and in my own vintage journey I'm "getting" it right.
My husband btw is delighted and at the same time bemused by my vintage look, as is our almost 13yo son. He thinks Mom looks great dressed in her vintage.
Who wouldn't want to be told that?
I think you're getting it right and much more succesfully so than I.This is what now works for me at 32:
Modern/retro - more mature style than most 30somethings wear today.
retro/vintage - Closer to what someone half my age would've worn back then. It partially has to do with what I can do with what I've collected of retro and vintage so far and that's not much and it's more retro than vintage.
It also has to do with my lifestyle; Active, outdoors, small children. Mature and elegant styles seem out of place in my rural area. I'm still much more formal and elegant than anyone I see around me though.lol However, in the past, people would've probably thought I looked like a disgrace!
In the 1990s I was much more formal and mature in style than now much of the time and I often wore suit dresses in bold colors or paisley skirts (Liz Claiborne) with blazers or dress jackets. Everyone said the dress suits flattered my figure but my face was too sweet but when I look at Judy Garland and a very young Peggy Lee, I don't know why a sweet face excludes elegant styling?:eusa_doh: I wear dark, demure, gingham wool skirts in winter that even my MIL (72) and much of her generation has stopped wearing. I don't care if people think I'm in costume as a granny!
My late grandmother from 1911 always thought my choice in colors and patterns were too provocative and she always urged me to choose softer colors especially for day wear. I don't know if it was a general preference she had or if it was because I was a child and later a very young adult? All of my black day wear made her see red!
In the future I'd like to get the casual/mature balance right. There's a lot of housekeeping, laundry and cooking in my lifestyle so apron dresses and wrap dresses, loafers, and low heels might help me strike the right casual/mature balance?
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