How To Look Current But Not Trendy If You're Not 22

Tips from the runway for ladies of a certain age.

Watching images of the New York shows roll in I almost always pay closest attention to the runway styling. The breadth and depth of new clothes we see are totally unattainable (and unsustainable), but the little twists and turns and individual flourishes are both more inspiring and more actionable. A lot looks the same these days. There’s not a lot that’s ugly. Things are very cream and muted and well-behaved, which is cool, but there are fewer of those twists and turns to latch onto.

I don’t think this is anyone’s fault—we’re all finding inspiration from so many different places now, the runway is hardly THE PLACE for experimentation. Designers are selling, baby, selling the dream, selling their vision, selling (literally) clothes. It’s no wonder it all looks very, very nice. Nice, nice, nice.

And if you don’t really want to just look nice? If you want to look electric or expressive or endearingly misguided? And, because this is my newsletter and I’m always talking about the 40+ demo (I’m here for you, Ladies of a Certain Age), what if you want all those jolts of singularity but you don’t want to look outdated? It’s a delicate act, feeling up to date without either blandifying yourself or falling into a trend quagmire.

And hark! Staying or looking current doesn’t always have to mean buying new stuff. More like, mixing up the stuff you have—or if you are going to buy new stuff, buying the right stuff.

Watching the shows and just kind of thinking about this a lot, I have some ideas about how to do it with minimal investment or frustration. One last thing: this isn’t my comprehensive runway report, I probably won’t do one. I looked to the designers who are most closely mirroring and trying to shift the way real women dress, and distilled what they’re doing into a handful of helpful pointers to look of the moment if you’re not 22. On Friday, I’m going to do a separate post styling these ideas on myself with a little how-to video.

Here are the ideas: