The Things That Changed The Way My Fancy Mom Gets Dressed

Essentials for a "lady of a certain age"

My Fancy Mom is back (find out all about her here). We were together in Austin over the holidays, and I was marveling at how beautifully she dresses, without seemingly ever shopping. She’s not on a constant hunt, and rarely buys new clothes. Her taste, generally, is exquisite, but clothes have never really been her thing as much as they are mine - she’s more into interiors and what we’d call living (food, gardens, entertaining…) and yet, she’s always fabulously dressed. We were on the phone the other day, and she started telling me how she’s basically stopped buying anything new, and why, etc etc, and I wanted to know which pieces she finds the most useful for getting dressed as a…in her words… “lady of a certain age.”

If it seems I’m preoccupied with age and aging right now, you’re right - it’s my birth month, and also my kids’ birth months (well, my son is at the very very end of Feb) so I am thinking a lot about it! And a lot about the passing of time. My mom has always been pretty frank with me about her experiences with aging, and I really appreciated that from her. And while I expressed some of my feelings about aging in a recent letter, the general universal vibe around women getting older has chilled a bit from her generation to mine. In some ways. At the very least in that we can talk openly about it now. Anyway, the conversation is super important to me in my work, and my personal life (obviously), and it relates heavily to body image and personal style. SO! I asked my mom to tell me about some of the things in her closet that have truly helped her define her style at this point in her life, and she put this together for me, for you, for us all. Thank you, Fancy Mom!

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I still look at short slim dresses with sleeveless tops and think: “That’s perfect for me.”

And then I remember.

Nope. Yvonne, your knees truly must now be covered at all times. And your arms are OK, but won’t do you any favors out in the open. And your neck. Better to cover that when you can, too. Also, don’t choose anything that requires a perfectly flat stomach. Etc.!

The new limitations of passing a certain age make dressing harder than it has ever been for me. And after 40 years of getting gussied up every single day to head to the office and make a style statement for clients who couldn’t tell good design from bad, but COULD tell whether I looked stylish or not… I’m frankly tired of making the effort. I DON’T have to go to an office, and aside from the occasional party with other people who are in the same boat I’m in, there’s very little pressure anymore to present a head-turning stylish look. But still. I want to be true to myself as a lover of beauty and not cringe when I see myself pass by in a mirror. So, these are my tried and true basic (hopefully not too boring) wardrobe items that I simply can’t live without that I think do the trick.