Aging is ultimately inevitable, but taking on old lady habits doesn’t have to be. A new documentary from Britain entitled “Fabulous Fashionistas” is getting attention for featuring six much older women who refuse to dress like old women.
“I just am myself because I love style and design and color,” explains one of the women.
The concept of the show is to bring to light that these older people are still independent, stylish, have goals, and opinions. Yes, their clothes are unusual for the elderly crowd, but some of their life choices are as well. None of the women, whose average age is 80, have had no plastic surgery or botox. Refreshing!
It’s empowering, but also brings up the question of why this is so astonishing. We are youth obsessed, but elderly individuality and style shouldn’t be cause for alarm. It’s not like anyone is breaking the law here, just a few social norms that seem incredibly strange when you think about them.
These ladies are helping to redefine the aging process, and squash the notion that only the young can be beautiful. They say with age comes wisdom, and in terms of these six women, we’d have to agree.
For some older folks, comfort might be a consideration in clothing choices, but that’s not too limiting really. Sweat suits are comfortable but so are jeans. Usually. And then there’s the fact that a lot of people don’t care about fashion to begin with, or they do less so as they get older. (Good example: check Facebook and notice that half of your graduating high school class already dresses ten years older than they are.) Perhaps the point these bold older women are making is not that they are rebels for wearing the rad leather jacket, but that why on earth aren’t the rest of you? Sure, an age 85 year-old doesn’t need to dress like a preteen but personal style and individuality should not have a time limit.
Over the hill doesn’t have to be all the way down the hill.
