She’s So Fly…

The mantra ‘dress to your body type not your age’ is generally considered the best piece of style direction that there is floating around in the fashion ether. But for anyone who followed the furore when Helena Christensen wore a sexy lace bodice to a birthday bash, it seems that even if you have the body of an angel, once you get to a certain age, you might still be expected to tone it down. Bad for Helena to be pulled up on her fashion choices when she still looked like a goddess, good for the rest of us who thought the old adage of being ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ was only thrown at the less genetically blessed.

I personally have a mutton moment every time I pull from my wardrobe a slightly chavvy black and gold bandage dress and wonder if I look borderline Dorian (Google ‘Birds of a Feather’ – it’s worth it). Another memorable hiccup was when I showed a friend a sequin dress I’d just purchased and her 14 year old daughter squealed with delight and informed me Miley Cyrus had one just like it. Thus I have discovered the importance of being circumspect; yes there are some out there at 60 with the rock hard abs of an 18 year old, and the legs of a supermodel (and fun fact, did you know Cher can plank for five minutes…FIVE MINUTES). And I’m all for the sisterhood, and rockin what you’ve got. Nevertheless, a crop top and daisy duke combo isn’t necessarily going to work unless you’re Susan Sarandon and have been undergoing cryogenic treatment on the sly.

One nugget of advice that I have grown to think has some merit, even if it was given to me by a super stylish ex-model friend who looks good in top to toe beige (and think very carefully about who can really pull that off). Anyway, her words of wisdom were - the older you get, the more you need to spend on fashion. Despite her natural advantage, she does actually have a point. As you age the majority of the trends are still achievable, but if the designers are using better cuts, better fabrics and better patterns, the chances are that the look will be more elegant and the silhouette more flattering.

So what style advice is going to take us to our happy place?

Embrace your shape. Figure types are as subject to trends as everything else out there, after all, who would have thought in the heroin chic glory days of the 1990s that twenty years later a huge caboose would be your goal figure type. Most of us are stuck, roughly, with what we were given. So work with, not against it. Once you’ve nailed which trends work, then you can filter out those that don’t.

Be prepared. Like a girl guide, a shopping trip is an expedition to dress appropriately for. Too many of my friends will abandon the task after trying on a few items – why? Because often they have on the wrong bra and undies and they feel like nothing looks good (quitters). So reach into your support-wear stocks and stick on the Spanx. Oh, and wear flat shoes.

Effortlessly beautiful. Unfortunately it seems that according to the experts, there is no such thing as effortless, just slobby. I fall into that bracket an embarrassing amount of the time, but I accept this. Those super chic ladies dressed in ballet flats, casual jeans, a white shirt and blazer may look as though they have had the good fortune to throw together a killer look, but the chances are a lot of time and energy has gone into that outfit. Don’t be fooled – they have not picked those jeans up off the bathroom floor and grabbed the white shirt back out of the laundry basket. Know this, and you’ll feel much happier.

Mix it up. While buying a signature – or investment – piece, can be mission critical, this doesn’t mean that everything in the ensemble has to be premium brands. There’s nothing wrong with other parts of the outfit being budget, as they are simply the mixers in the cocktail – make no mistake, the vodka is always going to be the hero of the drink.

Ignore fads. This is advice I need to take myself. I am the world’s worst for looking at a trend when it first hits the high street, seeing it for what it is – i.e. tacky, unflattering or just plain gaudy – and then being suckered into thinking that actually it’s not as gross as I first imagined. By about my third time of circling around the rack I have convinced myself it really is quite fabulous. This is why I have insisted on trailblazing all manner of quickly obscure fashions no one else would touch –rose gold flared jumpsuit, anyone? Basically go with your gut – if you think at first it’s foul, it probably is.