Does vintage make you look.... *older*?

[Gene]

People have thought I was in my late 30's before. I'm 24.

 

[Miss Sis]

I totally agree with this. I think I look cute in my 30s head-to-toe, though. And my new platinum blonde chorus girl hair. People usually think I am 25 -- I'm 34. As my husband says, girls can get away with a lot more than guys.

Funny, but I think my 30s stuff generally does make me look older. 40s stuff can make me look younger. It depends on the outfit and particularly the hair.

But frankly, if you like the look, Who cares if it makes you look older. I don't give a flying fig.

 

[Lillemor]

Well, if the rags are anything to go by, then there apparently is such a thing as dressing too old for your age and apparently you must immediately update your wardrobe or else.....They love to pick on young celebrities who dress conservatively and accuse them of being boring, out-of-date with style = really bad! and dressing like their parents or *shock!* grandparents = really bad! unless the decade they appear to be dressing is trendy right now. So it's okay to wear fx. 1940s cut suit if that's the trend now as long as it's not obviously old. Whatever...[huh]

My clothes isn't very vintage. I feel for many different historical, "boheme" and gothic styles for lack of better wording. So some days people compliment me for the "trendy retro mix look" and other days I can tell by their looks that they think I've got it all wrong. I have and will always be mixing like this. It never occurs to people that I don't know that I'm doing something trendy unless they tell me so because it's only on a very rare occassion that I'll bother to buy a ladies magazine and then I'm usually annoyed that elements of my style are trendy. I know that's a childdish attitude and that I should care less.

I dress to suit my lifestyle, budget, and to what extend is possible; my tastes. Function, comfort, and durability are my top priorities when choosing clothes and timeless classics provides that without making my look like a rag and allows me to retain a feminine appearance at the same time. I own very little footwear for daily use. Function, quality, comfort and price is again my top priority. I tend to think like my dad when it comes to footwear.

For the sake of my hypersensitive skin and scalp I no longer use cosmetics, fragrances or hairstyle products so I can't wear any vintage hairstyles but the amount of make-up I used to wear or rather the colors used to have a very upsetting effect on some other females. Men never noticed.

Now other women are smiling to me again and men are giving me second glances despite my bare face (do shape my brows) and just plain, clean, well trimmed straight hair and clean, shaped, but unpolished nails.:eusa_doh: I guess I just look more approachable to the modern person. It took some getting used to seeing myself like this and accepting it but now I feel more confident about my appearance than I ever have before.

Since many of us women look younger without make-up, the perceived inbalance in style may seem odd or costumey to some. I'm fine this way.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Funny, but I think my 30s stuff generally does make me look older. 40s stuff can make me look younger. It depends on the outfit and particularly the hair.

But frankly, if you like the look, Who cares if it makes you look older. I don't give a flying fig.

Word! I make my 30s clothes in bright, playful colours. I also have those dreaded tattoos in playful colours. I think my new blonde hair makes me look even younger. Not that I care, but it does give me more of a "cute" look. People still think I'm in my mid-20s no matter what i wear.

As for 50s, I just see that decade as "matronly" and I do think I look 10 years older and 10 pounds heavier when I wear 50s dresses. That's just me, though. They look fab on other people who have the spirit within them.

 

[Lillemor]

Funny, but I think my 30s stuff generally does make me look older. 40s stuff can make me look younger. It depends on the outfit and particularly the hair.

But frankly, if you like the look, Who cares if it makes you look older. I don't give a flying fig.

I've been avoiding 40s styles because I don't think I have the right mature look for it. I always thought I got away with 20s, 30s, 50s, early 60s easier. Maybe that's just my perception. You definitely have the right attitude. I don't wear styles women of my age would've worn in the 50s so perhaps that's why I'm getting away with some of the youthful styles of the decade.

I don't care if I'm mistaken for someone younger than I am and dressing much older. It's okay if they think I've raided my grandmother's wardrobe. The truth is that I've raided my mother in-law's wardrobe!

 

[LizzieMaine]

But frankly, if you like the look, Who cares if it makes you look older. I don't give a flying fig.

Bingo. My biggest problem with modern culture is its deification of youth -- there have been youth oriented cultures before, but this one takes it to unhealthy extremes by seeming to desperately try and deny that people do in fact age.

I'm not 25, haven't been for a very long time, and haven't got the slightest interest in trying to convince anyone otherwise. About the only thing I do that might be considered a concession to eternal youth is color my hair, but I only do that because I'd have a skunk stripe otherwise, and I never could stand Susan Sontag.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

Bingo. My biggest problem with modern culture is its deification of youth -- there have been youth oriented cultures before, but this one takes it to unhealthy extremes by seeming to desperately try and deny that people do in fact age.

The deification of youth has always been rampant in popular culture; modern or vintage.

It is the "let's put the old folk on the ice floe" syndrome. Not specifically attributed to today but in every age.

 

[Miss Sis]

Exactly, Lizzie. We are the age we are. I mean, no-one wants to look 20 or 30 years older than they are, but trying to look like a teenager when you're 40 or 50 is just going to look ridiculous.

Certainly pre-WW2, most women wanted to look older and more sophisicated, not like they were teeneagers. That really came post-WW2.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The deification of youth has always been rampant in popular culture; modern or vintage.

It is the "let's put the old folk on the ice floe" syndrome. Not specifically attributed to today but in every age.

I'd say the cultural impact of youth obsession is far greater now than it's ever been. Look at the twenties, about as youth-oriented a decade as there ever was -- but still there was a line. A woman in her forties was not expected or pressured to carry on like a flapper -- and the culture certainly didn't hold this up as an ideal for all ages. Nowadays the popular culture tells us -- over and over again, thru every form of media -- if you don't dress, act, and think like a twenty-five-year-old (or in the case of men, a fifteen-year-old) -- there's something wrong with you.

Maybe it *is* all a subconscious wish to avoid being set out on the ice floe, but the inescapable fact is there's an ice floe out there waiting for each and every one of us. All the Botox in the world won't change that.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

I'd say the cultural impact of youth obsession is far greater now than it's ever been. Look at the twenties, about as youth-oriented a decade as there ever was -- but still there was a line. A woman in her forties was not expected or pressured to carry on like a flapper -- and the culture certainly didn't hold this up as an ideal for all ages. Nowadays the popular culture tells us -- over and over again, thru every form of media -- if you don't dress, act, and think like a twenty-five-year-old (or in the case of men, a fifteen-year-old) -- there's something wrong with you.

Maybe it *is* all a subconscious wish to avoid being set out on the ice floe, but the inescapable fact is there's an ice floe out there waiting for each and every one of us. All the Botox in the world won't change that.

Perhaps, however, I will let popular culture speak in the form of a 1950 film called "All about Eve"

Where, the film begins at an awards dinner, where the newest and brightest star on Broadway, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), is being presented the Sarah Siddons award for her breakout performance as Cora in Footsteps on the Ceiling. The droll newspaper critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) observes the preceedings and, in a sardonic voice over, recalls how Eve's star rose as quickly as it did.

The film flashes back a year. Margo Channing (Bette Davis) is one of the biggest stars on Broadway, but despite her unmatched success, she is beginning to show her age. Margo quickly befriends Eve, who willingly offers to assist Margo in small ways. Margo soon offers Eve a job as assistant.

Eve begins working to supplant Margo, and succeeds.

The film's awards include:
Academy Awards

* Best Picture - 20th Century-Fox (Darryl F. Zanuck, producer)
* Best Supporting Actor - George Sanders
* Best Costume Design for a Black-and-White film - Edith Head and Charles Le Maire
* Best Director - Joseph L. Mankiewicz
* Best Writing, Screenplay - Joseph L. Mankiewicz

The list goes on.

While this is only one example, this clearly indicates "youth obsession" is not an exclusively modern phenomenon, but, about, "the more things change the more they stay the same".

Modern methods of avoiding aging is as old as time itself and is merely a "teched up" way to advance the concept of being forever young.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Perhaps, however, I will let popular culture speak in the form of a 1950 film called "All about Eve"

If George Sanders spent that film going around in baggy dungarees, a t-shirt, and a Jughead beanie, I'd grant your point. I've seen modern journalists going around in the contemporary equivalent of such an outfit, but I can't think of any circumstance where an actual newspaperman in 1950 would have done so.

In all seriousness, though, the real question is this: did the average woman in 1950 feel pressured to look, act, and think like a teenager even well into middle age? Would seeing this film reinforce such pressure?

 

[Carlisle Blues]

In all seriousness, though, the real question is this: did the average woman in 1950 feel pressured to look, act, and think like a teenager even well into middle age? Would seeing this film reinforce such pressure?

It is the very spirit of that story [All About Eve] which gives credence to the position that a negative attitude toward aging is not a modern phenomena. In fact, during the 2nd century A.D., Claudius Galen, the most famous doctor in the Roman Empire, precisely described the use of a mixture of lead oxide and slaked lime to dye hair black.

As such it appears getting "old" or appearing "old" has never been popular.

Seeing that movie alone would possibly prompt a lunatic to run around like a teenager. Negative perspectives toward aging has been a prevailing attitude that has been difficult to overcome for eons.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Seeing that movie alone would possibly prompt a lunatic to run around like a teenager. Negative perspectives toward aging has been a prevailing attitude that has been difficult to overcome for eons.

Funny, though, I don't recall anything particularly teen-age about Bette's attempts to reclaim her youth in the film but it's been a while since I watched it. Perhaps I missed the scene where she slouched around in rolled-up jeans and her father's untucked shirt. Seriously, though, even the "younger" woman in Eve portrayed an unmistakably adult image. She wasn't the sort of overgrown adolescent you see all over contemporary culture.

"Negative perspectives toward aging" in a culture are quite a bit different from a culture that's saturated in the worship of youthful irresponsibility. Nobody *wants* to age, but past cultures have accepted it with far more equanimity -- and dignity -- than that of today.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

Funny, though, I don't recall anything particularly teen-age about Bette's attempts to reclaim her youth in the film but it's been a while since I watched it. Perhaps I missed the scene where she slouched around in rolled-up jeans and her father's untucked shirt. Seriously, though, even the "younger" woman in Eve portrayed an unmistakably adult image. She wasn't the sort of overgrown adolescent you see all over contemporary culture.

"Negative perspectives toward aging" in a culture are quite a bit different from a culture that's saturated in the worship of youthful irresponsibility. Nobody *wants* to age, but past cultures have accepted it with far more equanimity -- and dignity -- than that of today.

The original thesis was:

I'd say the cultural impact of youth obsession is far greater now than it's ever been.

I think you are changing the argument. I do not believe it is about a culture that's saturated in the worship of youthful irresponsibility. That is a different topic altogether.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The original thesis was:


I think you are changing the argument. I do not believe it is about a culture that's saturated in the worship of youthful irresponsibility. That is a different topic altogether.

They go hand in glove, as far as I'm concerned. The desire to dress like a teenager is generally an expression of the desire to act like one, as well -- I don't see much separation between the two, quite frankly. Unless you're suggesting that the forty-year-old guys who shuffle down the street dressed like fifth period study hall just let out are actually expressing an appreciation for the highly refined aesthetic sense of the typical teenage boy.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

They go hand in glove, as far as I'm concerned. The desire to dress like a teenager is generally an expression of the desire to act like one, as well -- I don't see much separation between the two, quite frankly. Unless you're suggesting that the forty-year-old guys who shuffle down the street dressed like fifth period study hall just let out are actually expressing an appreciation for the highly refined aesthetic sense of the typical teenage boy.

I am not suggesting that at all. I see a clear distinction between the two. To dress a in a particular manner and act in a normal fashion is quite different than dressing in a particular manner and act peculiarly.

Again you are suggesting a new subject and discussion which I look forward to.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I am not suggesting that at all. I see a clear distinction between the two. To dress a in a particular manner and act in a normal fashion is quite different than dressing in a particular manner and act peculiarly.

Again you are suggesting a new subject and discussion which I look forward to.

You impose a distinction, but I don't. And since it's my statement, I get to define the terms under which it's debated. Sorry.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

You impose a distinction, but I don't. And since it's my statement, I get to define the terms under which it's debated. Sorry.

lol lol lol lol OK

They go hand in glove, as far as I'm concerned. The desire to dress like a teenager is generally an expression of the desire to act like one, as well -- I don't see much separation between the two, quite frankly. Unless you're suggesting that the forty-year-old guys who shuffle down the street dressed like fifth period study hall just let out are actually expressing an appreciation for the highly refined aesthetic sense of the typical teenage boy.

I do not believe so. The fact that one dresses in a particular manner does not necessarily mean that person will act in a socially awkward or unacceptable manner.

It could just mean the person has not used a mirror in a while.

(I am glad we are not playing marbles)lol

 

[LizzieMaine]

\
(I am glad we are not playing marbles)lol

I haven't played marbles since I was nine.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

I haven't played marbles since I was nine.

I lost mine a while ago.....lol lol