Forget makeup and tweakments: this is how we should be ageing gracefully

When I was young, there was a huge list of things you shouldn’t do, or specifically wear, over the age of 30; there were fewer explicit rules about what you should and shouldn’t wear over the age of 50, but they were all implied by the fact that it was 20 years since you’d been 30.

Someone lampooned the whole business with a definitive list of Never Wear This Over 30, which included 'a necklace made of ears', and the discourse seemed buried—until a weekend mirror caught me walking in a very 90s style. I guess we all learned that walk from Bez of Happy Mondays: leading with the shoulders, neck hunched, the rest of the body an afterthought.

How long can you carry on like that? At some point it must merge with the ravages of osteoporosis and leave you hunched for ever; I don’t want a walk that looks young or one that looks fitting for my time of life. I just need one that’s different. There are other updates to preferences too.

ageing gracefully, makeup, tweakments, ageism, fashion rules, over 30, over 50, posture, osteoporosis, 90s style