FASHION GOES AGE FLUID

Bypass borrowing from your sister’s wardrobe – your grandmother’s may be where it’s at

When Rita Moreno, the first woman and one of only 12 people in history to have won EGOT (an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony), stepped onto the Academy Awards red carpet this year, she wasn’t just re-wearing the same dress she wore to accept her 1962 Oscar for West Side Story at age 30. The octogenarian singer, dancer and actress had sliced through the modest neckline, added opera gloves, a Cleopatra collar necklace, jumbo-sized earrings and a turban. As thrifty as repurposing a 56-year-old dress from the wardrobe was, it was the statement about age fluidity in fashion that resonated. The message: what you wear no longer shows your birthdate. And it was reiterated by seasoned actresses Viola Davis, Meryl Streep and Allison Janney, whose colour palette of choice ranged from fire-engine red to fuchsia in dresses that could have just as easily worked for the ingenues making their awards debut.

Gone are the days when you can tell someone’s age simply by the clothes they wear. Women from their twenties through to their nineties are choosing to buy the same things. Case in point: Eva Marie Saint, 93, also at the Oscars in a black satin column by New York label Landero, a shorter version of which was worn by 24-year-old Australian actress Aisha Dee to the Black Panther premiere just a month before. It’s attitude, not age, that is dictating what we love and personality that’s influencing our personal style. The UK Telegraph’s fashion editor Caroline Leaper called it for 2018 in her piece on the rise of age-fluid fashion: “As much as women in their fifties may want to look more stylish and modern than the generations before them, it appears that twenty-somethings are also sick of being swaddled in cheap, unsophisticated bodycon. We’ve met somewhere in the middle, settling on a core wardrobe of quality, modern silhouettes that flatter most figures.”

“All women age differently,” says Iris Apfel, the

96-year-old “accidental icon” whose new book of the same name espouses dressing for oneself and doing so unapologetically. “I know people who are old ladies at

40 and youngsters at 80. There aren’t any rules and I think people should just be themselves and express themselves and not look at the calendar.” The New Yorker’s colourful, characterful style has inspired blockbuster exhibitions, documentaries and runway collections and it’s her light-hearted approach and sense of humour rather than slavishly following fads that has seen her personal style stay true throughout her life. “I’ve always been consistent in the way that I’ve thought about those things. I don’t jump around and I don’t follow trends. I think everybody should be an individual and dress to suit herself and understand first who she is.”

With so many labels offering cross-generational appeal now, sticking to your section of the department store seems as outdated as sticking only to neutrals and always opting for sleeves. “I recently bought Lee Mathews’ Stella silk-satin skirt in pale pink along with a few other new-season pieces and took it over to my nonna’s for show and tell. When I got there, she pulled out exactly the same skirt, only in cream,” laughs ELLE’S bookings and style editor Dannielle Cartisano. “I’ve since pinched hers and now I’m alternating both. When I told a thirty-something colleague that they both owned the same Scanlan Theodore lace blouse, instead of being mortified she asked what my nonna had been styling it back with.”

So, is there any relevance to the tired guidelines around dressing for your age? As far as the runways, stores and street-style scene are concerned, it’s a resounding no. But there is one valuable style lesson we can all live by, according to Apfel, no matter what your age. “There’s something called being appropriate, which seems to have flown out of the fashion lexicon. I think you have to dress for what you are doing and where you are going and not wear, as many people do, athleticwear to a dinner party. So many people do. I mean, athleticwear is perfectly fine for going to the gym – I don’t say you should dress up like Astor’s pet horse – but I just think if you’re going to the theatre, you should have some respect for the people you are sitting next to or the people on the stage and to come looking like a human being, not as though you just fell out of bed.”

Enough said.