The age of silver linings
From covering (or embracing) greys to ‘‘appropriate’’ skirt lengths, trying to look the part at work is a tricky business, writes Charlie Gowans-Eglinton.
Amonth after I turned 27, I cut my hair. Falling past my shoulders, it was that cliched signifier of femininity and, I realised, youth. With long brown hair, my ID was requested in the supermarket, I was asked to make the tea, and greeted as a stranger by peers I’d met multiple times.
As Melanie Griffith realised in Working Girl, ‘‘You wanna be taken seriously, you need serious hair’’. The chin-length bob looked smarter and made me look smarter, and older too. I was offered a new job – two, actually – in the next two months. Six months after the cut, it was highlights. Very expensive to maintain, but then, that’s the point, or at least the one you want to project. I was promoted and while I like to think my work clinched it, I’m not ruling out the hair, or the smarter wardrobe I embraced to go with it.
Looking one’s age has become not the done thing – and certainly not in the workplace. Grey hair is a sign of distinction or even virility for men: for women, to be seen to be ageing is still, in most boardrooms, to be seen to be less capable.
Hillary Clinton is 70. At the time of her run for office, a study by the University of British Columbia found that 48 per cent of American female chief executives, and 35 per cent of female senators, had blonde hair. The natural incidence of blonde is 2 per cent. Perhaps Clinton’s choice of highlights wasn’t a coincidence, but a strategy to fit the mould.
When, following her loss in the polls, she was photographed with some natural grey showing through her usual blonde bob, New York magazine reported that she had ‘‘given up the gimmick’’: the gimmick being that age-defying blonde. She hadn’t – or if she had, perhaps she changed her mind when she read the article: Clinton was spotted out with freshly blonded hair weeks later.
‘‘What felt like my serious commitment to colouring (every four weeks) coincided with starting at Vogue,’’ says the magazine’s ex beauty director Anna-Marie Solowij, ‘‘and believing that I ought to look ‘the part’, whatever that was. In my mind, it certainly didn’t include grey roots.’’
Now the co-founder of BeautyMart, Solowij has embraced her natural grey. ‘‘The hilarious thing is that as I’ve become known for my grey hair – rather than making me invisible, and less relevant, it’s made me stand out more.’’
That being said... ‘‘I had my first offer of a seat on the train the other week and that felt weird. It was a younger woman who had seen the back of my head, and when I turned around and thanked her but declined, she looked shocked and embarrassed.’’
With grey hair deemed trendy, it’s become acceptable, at least within the fashion and beauty industries, to look older: so long as it’s the right kind of older, and the right shade of grey.
‘‘Over the years, I have created a couple of intense silver platinum colours for high-profile businesswomen and they really stand out from the crowd; it’s a brave move if you feel you work in an environment that is ageist,’’ says Josh Wood, catwalk and celebrity colourist and global colour creative director for Redken, who launched a new range of silver glosses to enhance grey hair this month.
‘‘I know that a lot of my clients who work in the city really do feel that grey is not an option, which is a shame. I personally love grey hair and it’s not about letting go, it’s just about wearing a different colour.’’
Wardrobe has a huge role to play in looking the part. Brigitte Macron may have the legs (much better than mine) for those miniskirts, but that doesn’t make them chic or elegant on her, when paired with stilettos, a perma tan and a helmet blow-dry.
‘‘Anything too short or long, too tight or big, too complicated or trendy – extremes don’t look youthful,’’ says wardrobe editor and personal stylist Annabel Hodin.
‘‘At the other end of the spectrum, a 20-something can go too far in attempting to age-up for the office but there are changes you can make.
‘‘Look at the people you work with – the ones doing well, the leaders – and see how they dress.
‘‘Do this all the way up and even down in your company, and you’ll see what’s needed. Add accents of your own style to be individual, but understand that small details are enough at first.’’
Thankfully, the mutton-lamb and lamb-mutton extremes can be easily avoided in today’s fashion climate. ‘‘I do think we’ve moved into an era of Ageless Style,’’ says Alyson Walsh of That’s Not My Age website and the newly published Know Your Style. ‘‘The boundaries between generations have disappeared and it’s about style.’’
With one exception: ‘‘I probably show less flesh these days, but that doesn’t bother me.’’
For me, dressing to look my ideal working age means that despite the fashion trend for trainers, and the fact that older (and more senior) colleagues will wear designer pairs with long dresses to the office I avoid them myself, as anything too casual makes me look younger still (I’ll be 30 next week).
I wear glasses instead of contact lenses when I’m interviewing designers, and a navy blazer is my uniform for meetings or to smarten up jeans – which I do wear occasionally, but always with a jacket and bit of a heel. I invest in small diamond earrings that I wear every day. I wear a lot of lipstick. But my main attempt to look like a grown-up has to be those honey-coloured highlights.
My mother wears her hair the
It’s become acceptable to look older: so long as it’s the right kind of older, and the right shade of grey.
same way at 60. She’s not sure when the natural brown we shared turned grey but at some point, while I was trying to look older, she started trying to look younger. Now she times root touch-ups around important meetings, just as I schedule mine around fashion shows.
As I’ve embraced sombre colours and sharp tailoring, she’s turned to youthful bright colours and prints that are flattering against her skin, and is rarely without a large pair of earrings or bold necklace.
She may be twice my age but we’d both rather she didn’t look it. – The Telegraph