I don’t care if I do look like mutton dressed as lamb

By author Candida Crewe, 57

Where is the rule book that says women over 50 can’t wear mini skirts? Or is it 30? i’ve never seen that manual, but i know the rule is writ large. i am 57 but ignoring it. is that gross? Am i mutton dressed as lamb? Yes and yes again, probably. But i don’t care.

i couldn’t wear mini skirts when i was young because i felt i was too fat — nearly three stone more than i am these days. i used to look at my thin friends with envy. they could wear anything and look fantastic.

Me? in order to conceal my lardy figure, i spent over 30 years in voluminous headto-toe black.

then i lost weight in my 40s and risked a kneelength skirt or two. Only then, by the time i was far too old, did i feel my legs were allowed to emerge from their lifelong captivity. One of my best friends told me last week it was unbecoming to have the body of a teenager and the clothes to match.

She said it kindly, but i got the message — eat more pies and age gracefully. A boyfriend started by loving my mini skirts and the fact i wasn’t sporting the floral tents and purple cardigans associated with my menopausal peers.

But one day when i was deliberating about what to wear, he said those fatal words: ‘Maybe it’s time . . . ’ Meaning: ditch the youthful hemlines. i told a friend about it this week and he was outraged. ‘Wear what you damn well like. it’s about pleasing you. No one else.’ his beautiful daughter — a model — and her gorgeous boyfriend, both in their 20s, were vociferous in their defence of my choice.

i told them i was making up for lost time. ‘Go, girl,’ they said, and didn’t give the impression they were disgusted. Maybe they have impeccable manners and i’m deluded.

But if helen Mirren can rock the Goth look at nearly 80, as she did last weekend at Paris Fashion Week, what’s stopping me?

Of course, i know i’ll have to come to my mini skirt senses soon. But i am not ready to go long quite yet.

i’ll stick with the too-short hems a little while longer — and maybe leave transitioning to dignity till i turn 60.