Resolved at Last: How to Dress Your Age

 
Vanessa Friedman had such a good piece recently in the New York Times. She answered a reader’s question about what to wear as you age. Vanessa is a crackerjack reporter/writer and chief fashion correspondent for the Times, yet when needed responds personally to let you know she has thought about that too. 

We spend a lot of our fashion lives on age appropriateness. For me that started in early adolescence when I really really wanted to wear a sleeveless black sheath dress. The appropriate age, according to my mother and reluctantly at that, was fifteen. It did no good to argue that the models in "Seventeen", the teen fashion bible, were wearing black sheaths. Eventually I turned 15 and haven't been without a little black dress since, although it's now not sleeveless and not a sheath. 

I’ve a temptation to just cut and paste Vanessa’s piece. Her words certainly have more weight than mine, but as I’ve often had similar thoughts I'll use her reply to treat this as The Fashion Resolution You Really Have to Keep.

W H A T   W E    F E A R

Quoted directly from Vanessa and heard so many times before, "just because you can wear something doesn't mean you should."  Sure, the rules aren't as strict (or as clear) today about what society dictates we wear. 

Rightfully fear being called "mutton dressed as lamb". I always picture the John Tenniel illustration from "Through the Looking Glass", (scary enough), but really it means too obviously dressing yourself to appear younger. Fails every time.

Own it. If you're going to slink about in gold-coated denim jeans don't wear them. Believe in what you wear and wear them like you mean it. Be prepared for comments, though, usually sounding like compliments because most people are nothing if not polite. How you reply depends on how quick witted you are, but "thank you" and a smile will always do.

S O   W H A T 'S   T H E   A N S W E R ?

We know that what you wear tells people who you are or how you want to be perceived and that it changes. It's never a Eureka! moment; for some it's never a moment at all. But we all know the feeling when you look at something in your closet and are sure you are never ever going to wear that thing again. 

The wisest (and Vanessa is surely one) counsel not to be afraid of letting go of the past, what you might have been happy wearing when you were someone else or just not the far more experienced person you are today. 

There is also no expiration date on style. Just because Fashion shows everything on 20-some-year-olds doesn't mean they are the only ones allowed to wear them.

She has her own list of women she admires as they "look as if they know who they are and are comfortable telegraphing that to the world." Sigourney Weaver, Isabelle Huppert, Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett are on her list. 

Mine skews a little older as I that's where I look for inspiration these days: Vanessa Redgrave, Helen Mirren, Iris Apfel, Bette Midler, Mary Berry. And yes, it's hard to separate how these women look from all their many accomplishments. That could be why the classic society clothes horse is so very much out of fashion these days.

 
You will have your own list. Maybe make that instead of a lot of resolutions you won't keep. 

The answer to dressing your age? Vanessa ends with: "...making your own decisions about what makes you feel good...Which is, really, the ultimate grown-up way to dress."

Iris and Vanessa—two of the best

 

"Not Tonight, Josephine"

Napoleon didn't say that in the Ridley Scott film. According to this version of his life he was besotted with Josephine and would never say never. She appeared to be less fond of him. 

There is little to like in "Napoleon", and that was the problem—no one to root for. Napoleon, as portrayed by Joaquim Phoenix, was slightly less creepy than Marlon Brando playing at playing Napoleon in 1954's "Desiree". Phoenix seemed both inscrutable and deranged, more so as the film wore on. 

There are plenty of well-executed gory battle scenes, but too much of anything is, well, too much.

When things got tedious I found myself drinking in the costumes, which reflect the tumultuous fashions from 1789 to 1815. One bit of fashion history I find fascinating was underplayed. 

As the film begins, Marie Antoinette is being marched through the streets to her death, sporting a ramshackle but full head of hair, a bit of a flub on Scott's part. As per every other beheaded royal, her hair was actually shorn before execution so as not to impede the path of the guillotine. Marie's hair at one time was her crowning glory, so this would have been a memorable part of her come-down.

Ready or not...

When Napoleon first sets eyes on Josephine in 1795 she is sporting a cropped messy pixie and a narrow red velvet ribbon around her neck. This was all part of a niche movement after the Reign of Terror* known as Les Merveilleuses (The Wonderful) who did away with stiff, formal court dress in favor of loose silhouettes in cotton or flax. The short hair was called "coiffure a la victim", an homage to the condemned prisoners, as was the choker, for obvious reasons. 

Vanessa Kirby as Josephine

Mocking Les Merveilleuses 

Josephine was supposedly quite the fashionista, and what she wore had a major influence among her set and in the fashion press. Her first husband had been executed, and she herself had been imprisoned for a time. In the scene where she meets Bonaparte at an evening soiree, she appears to be the only woman thus attired and coiffed. She stands out, for sure.

If you haven't a keen grip on the timeline here follows une brève historic:

1789  Storming of the Bastille; French Revolution begins

1792  Republic established

1793  Reign of Terror begins (lasts until 1794)

1795  The Directory takes over (and Napoleon starts winning wars)

1799  Napoleon becomes Consul

1804  Napoleon declares himself Emperor

1812  Not a good year for Napoleon

1814  Napoleon abdicates and is sent to Elba

1815  Tries to seize power again, then comes Waterloo; exiled to St.Helena

1821  Napoleon dies in exile

According to Scott, Napoleon's Waterloo was his obsessive love for Josephine. And, no, "Waterloo" by ABBA was not on the soundtrack during that battle scene, but it played in my head.

* The Reign of Terror occurred after the Revolution during the government led by Robespierre. Besides nobles and clergy, any ordinary person considered suspicious was rounded up, imprisoned, possibly given a trial, often just executed.