So, what is appropriate dressing for the mother of the bride?
Twitter had a field day this week with this, erm, exuberant, semi-sheer dress which was promoted as a charmingly feminine option for mothers of the bride – a mere $2,390 (£1,800). “This black romantic, mother of the bride or groom, womens [sic] dress is very elegant, classy and feminine at the same time,” ran the guileless caption, beneath a gown that was more
Met Ball C-lister than Carole Middleton.
My first instinct was that I need to revise my wedding guest outfit plans this summer. If this is what Mommie Dearest is rocking this year, then the suit I’d lined up is all wrong. But the critical onslaught in the wake of the tweet suggests that, while the world has embraced living floral bridal ceilings and week-long hen yoga retreats, it’s not yet ready to embrace Mob’s channelling Liz Hurley’s Versace safety pin dress.
As MOB dresses go, it’s definitely out there and almost certainly not very polite: no one’s supposed to upstage the bride on her big day, least of all her mother. But mixed in with the outrage isn’t there also a bundle of preconceptions about how mothers of the bride are meant to dress?
Pastel, pretty, prim – the unofficial uniform of all Mobs – are fine if that’s your bag. But what if you’re naturally inclined to style yourself on Maleficent lines? Arguably, what’s required of anyone attending a wedding – or any big life marker – is to Make An Effort. The details – length, silhouette, colour, fashionability, amount of coverage, cost – are just localised semantics. Yet it’s astonishing how judgmental otherwise tolerant folk are about clothing. The preconceptions aren’t reserved for mothers of the bride either. All women of a “certain” age are constantly judged.
When 50-yearold supermodel Stephanie Seymour sashayed down the Versace catwalk last month in what was, essentially, an uber-version of that MOB number, I’m ashamed to say I could feel my critical hackles flexing. I think I can sum them up as:
1. Was that dress a wise choice, given that even she doesn’t have the same body as when
she was 25? 2. Ooh back-fat. Stephanie Seymour has back fat. 3. How is that possible, given how much she must work out? 4. Is exercise pointless and should I bother? Or (a bit later and more rationally)… 5. Obviously I shouldn’t, but I should stop comparing myself all the time with everyone else?
By the time Seymour had snaked round the catwalk, the saner, more reasonable me was in control. So what if her body has changed? It would be weird if it hadn’t.
I’m going to blame my knee-jerk response on decades of clothes only ever being shown on naturally toned, sag-free adolescents and trust that more Seymours on the catwalk and – yes if required – more MOB convention-busters cure me of all prejudice.
When I interviewed Donatella Versace recently, she said she fervently hoped never to dress appropriately. “It just feels like too many rules imposed by other people,” she said. OK that’s Donatella Versace – a woman who has made Very Donatella an adjective. So I asked someone whose style is lower key. “Dress my age,” retorted Jane Lewis, the extremely stylish 44-year-old founder/designer of Goat (a favourite of Meghan and Kate). “I just don’t believe in it. I believe in dressing for purpose and in a way that feels appropriate to me as an individual. There are no rules”. I can live with that if you can.