Help dress me - over 40 edition

November 12, 2013 5:38 AM

Looking for websites, blogs, sources for fashion for women of a certain age

I want to be that woman who always looks put-together, fashionable, and classy. Can you help me find websites, Pinterest boards, blogs, whatever that are geared towards the over-40 woman?

I seem to buy one or two pieces each season, usually late because I don't know it's fashionable until everyone else already is wearing it. Then it turns out that it doesn't really go with anything else in my closet, and I end up wearing the same old black pants and nice top. I look fine, but boring.

Here is an example of my dilemma. Right now I see that midi skirts are making a comeback. When I look at pictures on the web (Pinterest, specifically), I see lots of young woman pairing them with short, even midriff-exposing, tops. Cute on them, but silly on me. Plus, it's 40 degrees outside and just getting colder.

I'm not interested in reading about cooking or decorating, just what's trending, where to get it, and how to put together a full outfit, with pictures of adult women wearing it all. Price point: mid to upper, but not stratospheric. Location: NY City, so dark colors and winter clothes.

posted by AMyNameIs to Shopping (13 answers total)

You might like the website You Look Fab. It's not age-specific, but it does skew more towards the more mature, classic look.
posted by Salamander at 5:55 AM on November 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

Girls of a Certain Age. Run by Kim France, founding editor of Lucky. More single items than full outfits, but age-appropriate and so readable. That's where I learned about Isabel Marant and the wedge sneaker thing, which is a thing.
posted by purpleclover at 5:57 AM on November 12, 2013 [4 favorites]

amid priviledgeis pretty awesome. She embodies a certain east coast old money practicality and breaks down why certain peices work and don't work, and she talks about growing up old east coast rich, and the priviledge that affords her.

it's a fascinating blog, and she mostly only talks about clothing and what meaning certain combinations convey.
posted by larthegreat at 6:04 AM on November 12, 2013 [3 favorites]

lady-of-style.blogspot.com - Annette manages to hit that sweet spot of classy without being frumpy. Shes in Germany, lots of Zara, Mango and H&M.
posted by Ness at 6:20 AM on November 12, 2013

Lot's of links previously, not all of them necessarily for the "certain age". The one I had posted there, The Closet Shopper is written by a classy, fun, over-40's woman.
posted by gubenuj at 6:33 AM on November 12, 2013

The Vivian Files is awesome, and is specifically geared toward assembling a wardrobe, piece by piece, so that the new things you buy fit in to the stuff you already have.
posted by BlahLaLa at 6:36 AM on November 12, 2013 [3 favorites]

Linked by the Wall Street Journal, via Lady of Style, mentioned above:

Chic at Any Age
Flattering50
A Femme d'Un Certain Age
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:38 AM on November 12, 2013

I'm a fan of Allie at Wardrobe Oxygen. She is 38, but she's not wearing twee precious Pinterest outfits or midriff tops. She has a nice balance of career wear/weekend wear and I find myself taking lots of accessory cues from her.
posted by kimberussell at 7:18 AM on November 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

That's Not My Age is pretty good. Not so much entire outfits as individual items and media watching for coverage of older women. I also went through a phase of obsessively reading The Vivienne Files and it totally straightened out my wardrobe, even though most of the looks she shows are not really anything I would wear.
posted by HotToddy at 8:17 AM on November 12, 2013

I'm a fan of The Working Closet.
posted by hungrybruno at 9:01 AM on November 12, 2013

You can wear midi skirts! The idea behind the crop-top is to draw attention to the waist and to oppose the slight dowdiness of the skirt length. To get the same effect without showing skin, wear the skirt with a very fitted T-shirt or blouse, tucked in. And heels. If you go with a slim/pencil midi, You'll get a sort of 1940's sexy librarian look that's so grand. If you are building a wardrobe slowly, this would be a fine trendy thing to buy, as you could shorten the length fairly easily later.
posted by velebita at 9:04 AM on November 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

Seconding Wardrobe Oxygen. She always looks polished, and she wears a lot of basics mixed in with a few trendy items.
posted by xmts at 1:19 PM on November 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, everyone. I'm not marking a best because I need to read these for a while to figure out which ones work for me.

And thanks, velebita, for the information on midi skirts. So we're doing tucked in, at least for the midi skirt. This is exactly the sort of thing that I am trying to keep up on.
posted by AMyNameIs at 1:20 PM on November 14, 2013