Should you dress your age?

So Nicole Kidman is the latest age offender to be brought to book by the mutton police. Kidman was recently cautioned for recklessly steering a black semi-sheer-under-the-paparazzi’s-lenses minidress through a built-up area (the red carpet at a music awards ceremony involving her husband Keith Urban), leading waspish observers to conclude that if this is what the formerly elegant Kidman now deems necessary attire, then her marriage must really be in trouble. Odd that the more women who insist that on second thoughts, they’d rather not go into purdah once they hit 40, the more strident the opposition. Even odder that it mainly comes from other women.
I’ll come clean: I have a vested interest in seeing how Kidman’s hemline outrage plays out. Will the mini save her marriage and prove to be the catalyst for that baby she wants? Or will Keith leave her for a woman who wears calf-length tweeds? Actually, I have several interests. First up, I’m even more ancient than Kidman. Second, I’ve done my share of critiquing those who dress like two-year-olds and those who dress like their daughters. Third, a few weeks ago, I succumbed to a pair of metal-studded patent sandals in Prada, which you could call punk-esque. I’m calling them the modern alternative to beading, being painfully aware that anything vaguely punk is not age appropriate and that really I should be slipping into something more comfortable from K Shoes.
Or maybe not, because the rules they are a-changin’. And so fast that I beg you to make haste reading this. Want some examples of rules in flux? That one about Not Being Allowed to wear a trend twice for a start – does that mean you can’t wear a fabulously cut tuxedo trouser suit second, third or fifth time round? Are 80-year-olds precluded from patent handbags because they bought one in 1957? It’s rubbish. Trends are there to be (re)interpreted and extrapolated from. The only thing that should be left to teenagers is following them blindly. As for miniskirts, five years ago they were generally deemed a bit tragic on a 40-year-old. But Elle Macpherson is 44 and what would be tragic in her case would be covering up her legs.
I’m not saying something becomes right because everyone’s doing it, but it does become normalised. With normalisation come good and bad examples. With multiple examples comes nuance. It probably is fine to wear a mini in your forties on a date with your husband nowadays, baggy jumpers (Frump Gear in tabloid speak) on a country walk, or a more conservative outfit than normal when you’re touring your child’s potential next school. It’s down to context. Those waify savants the Olsen twins (of the billion-dollar empire based on pastel T-shirts for tweenies) have already sussed this. At 21 they now design a surprisingly sophisticated label called The Row. Basically it’s arrow-skinny jackets, slinky knits and suction dresses – and yes, you need a good body, though not, as they’re at pains to point out, a young one. So they hired Lauren Hutton to model the latest collection. "We wanted to show it wasn’t just for girls our age – and she’s eternally cool."
They’re right. Hutton looks terrific in these stretchy pieces, every un-Botoxed line and limber muscle of her. Even at 63. What will the mutton police make of that?



http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article2856716.ece