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Dressing your age?

timmy

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I was reading this Guardian piece in which Jason Om, whom I adore, said "These days I’ve cut back on graphic t-shirts brutally. I figure I should dress more my age. But maybe when I’m in my 50s, I can pull it off again like Todd Sampson".

How do we feel about "dressing our age"?

Personally I am like Todd Sampson and have never given up t-shirts. Living in the tropics means that t-shirts and shorts are just more practical. Do we really need to change our style because others might judge us? Is it wrong for a woman in her 50s to wear a little black dress or whatever TF she wants? Does jealousy play a part, because a middle aged woman can still look hot?

Should I chuck out my t-shirts/shorts* and wear button up shirts and trousers? And if so, why?

Discuss.

*spoiler: Not gonna happen.
 
I am all for dressing to suit your own personal style and lifestyle. And that may change depending on different stages in your life.

For instance I have worked from home for close to a decade after working in an office - so my office clothes became my around home clothes. But just as I had got get to the stage where they have worn out and i have had to think about deliberately buying stuff just to sit around the house in for work, I got made redundant. so now I am doing some house rrenos so the old rags are still relevant lol!

Maybe my clothes are dictating my life....

My partner is in his late 40's and still wears t-shirts and shorts and I believe he always will.
 
I do wonder when that time comes when you transition from wearing the 'normal' clothes you always have, to never leaving the house without brown shoes, long socks, neatly ironed trousers and a button-up shirt (tucked in of course). Sometimes even a tie. My sister-in-law's father dressed like that until the day he died.
So many older men dress like that. My late grandpa did, every day, even though he lived on his own and never saw anyone.
My aunty in her seventies will not answer the door if she doesn't have her face and hair done.
 
Also, and completely OT, how can you not notice when you have hair growing out of your nose and ears, and why don't you do something about it? (Not you timmy, lol).
And should you tell a loved one if they have, or mind your own business?
 
And should you tell a loved one if they have, or mind your own business?
Buy them a nose hair trimmer and have a quiet intervention. I actually know someone my age who had this issue, but before I got around to bringing it up he must have broken out the whipper snipper. Perhaps someone else mentioned it.

As for your grandpa, he probably kept wearing what he'd always worn? And remember they're from an era when people got dressed up to go to town, or travel on a plane. From the 1960s onwards it was all downhill more relaxed.
 
I have worked from home for close to a decade after working in an office - so my office clothes became my around home clothes. But just as I had got get to the stage where they have worn out and i have had to think about deliberately buying stuff just to sit around the house in for work, I got made redundant. so now I am doing some house rrenos so the old rags are still relevant lol!
I couldn't imagine wearing office clothes at home even for WFH (unless you're doing Zoom or something, and even then I'd only wear the top half lol). Sorry to hear about your redundancy. I hope you got a five star payout. World's your lobster now, wear what you like.
 
I couldn't imagine wearing office clothes at home even for WFH (unless you're doing Zoom or something, and even then I'd only wear the top half lol). Sorry to hear about your redundancy. I hope you got a five star payout. World's your lobster now, wear what you like.
My round home office clothes are so old now they are pretty comfortable because the elastic has gone in the waistbands, or they are stretched - so it is really like wearing a long skirt/dress version of trackie dacks! I tried to make sure if I had a zoom meeting I was presented well enough on top - but also had my camera so you couldn't see much below my neck anyway so I didn't have to war a bra if I didn't want to lol. (WFH tricks you learn when you hate being on camera!)

I was pathetically underpaid when I worked there, so my payout was not great, but it has been enough to pay for a garage that we have needed and a new camera. We are storing our furniture in the garage and renting out the house and moving back to NZ for a few years to spend time with aging family and run our own business back there.
 
My aunty in her seventies will not answer the door if she doesn't have her face and hair done.
You reminded me...watching my grandma when I was a kid struggling to put pantyhose on standing up. She must have been in her 60's by this stage, but refused to sit on the side of the bed to put them on because "only old people do that"

I am pretty sure I was sitting on the bed to help put them on when I was in my twenties!

People of different generations have different quirks and things they do.
 
We are storing our furniture in the garage and renting out the house and moving back to NZ for a few years to spend time with aging family and run our own business back there.
That's a big step. Where in NZ? Hope your stuff will be secure. Will you have a friend check on it? Or ask tenants to let you know if anything happens? It's been 26 years since I left NZ and I can't imagine living there again. Well, maybe if we screw up the climate even faster than expected and it turns tropical there. I'd still be able to hang out in t-shirts and shorts.
 
That's a big step. Where in NZ? Hope your stuff will be secure. Will you have a friend check on it? Or ask tenants to let you know if anything happens? It's been 26 years since I left NZ and I can't imagine living there again. Well, maybe if we screw up the climate even faster than expected and it turns tropical there. I'd still be able to hang out in t-shirts and shorts.
West Auckland - Westie born and raised!

Maybe the new wardrobe will need to be tie-died velvet skirts and Metallica t-shirts!

We will have a property manager (as much as that makes me shudder cos I hate them, but we will have to) so they will be given a key to that side of the garage. We have also made friends with the guy who comes and mows our lawn, so he will continue to come and look after the lawn and prune the fruit trees and keep an eye on the place for us.
 
I have wondered if/when I will shop at the middle aged ladies stories like Sussan and Katies. I mean the clothes seem stylish enough but to me they just don’t feel right for me. My 14 year old niece and I tend to dress alike, which is now how I dressed at 14, so I’m pretty sure that’s tragic on my part and shows some arrested development.
 
When it comes to guys, age and t-shirts. I've observed there's a spectrum that roughly applies.

If guys are quite slight and thin. A shirt is best as a t-shirt makes them look like a 12 year old.

When guys have some physical fitness or shape to their body, but not too overweight. They can pull off a t-shirt. They can fill it out and look good.

Then when they aren't too overweight, but chubb and lack physical fitness. It's a shirt. T-shirts a bit too sloppy looking and don't fit right.

Once men get too big, it's a free for all. Nothing looks good and it just comes down to their preference of giving up or still trying.

This becomes a sliding scale with age, because people tend to move down this ladder.

For me personally, I slide from t-shirts good, to shirts and now back to t-shirts look good because I started working out and got fit. Something I didn't start doing until my 30s. I do sometimes buy clothes I think are nice, but a bit "adult" and then never wear them. Although I'm sure I dress like an old 30 something to younger people who seem to have hideous fashion. Like pants that are super skinny on their underdeveloped calf muscles which stop before their ankles and their sockless wearing of shoes.
 
My aunty in her seventies will not answer the door if she doesn't have her face and hair done.
I'm like that with my lipstick. Never go anywhere without it on, and yes, I even wore it under my mask - just in case I had to take it off somewhere.
I think you have to be realistic with aging and fashion. There's a way of doing it. My hemlines have come down, but I've never been a show it all type of girl. If the hemline was short, the neckline was high, if the neck line was low, the hemline was longer.
I've always been a bit on the alternative side, so I think if you're a wee bit acentric you can get away with more!
 
West Auckland - Westie born and raised!

Maybe the new wardrobe will need to be tie-died velvet skirts and Metallica t-shirts!

We will have a property manager (as much as that makes me shudder cos I hate them, but we will have to) so they will be given a key to that side of the garage. We have also made friends with the guy who comes and mows our lawn, so he will continue to come and look after the lawn and prune the fruit trees and keep an eye on the place for us.
Ah wow. Back to NZ.
I was in Australia for the last 5 weeks (my mum died) and maybe I am almost ready to move back.
I have a property manager and I am actually happy I do. They do seem to do their job well enough and the times I (and separately my then-partner) tried leasing out privately ended in disaster. So I wouldn't do it without a property manager again.

When do you move?
 
Ah wow. Back to NZ.
I was in Australia for the last 5 weeks (my mum died) and maybe I am almost ready to move back.
I have a property manager and I am actually happy I do. They do seem to do their job well enough and the times I (and separately my then-partner) tried leasing out privately ended in disaster. So I wouldn't do it without a property manager again.

When do you move?
Sorry to hear about your mum. Did you get to see her before she went?

I leased out privately when I has a house in nz when I was younger but mum and dad could kind of look after it. I still came back to some interesting findings. Evidence of domestic violence and my house being the local place to buy dope. So yes definitely getting a property manager this time.

Have not set a date to move yet. Tidying some things around the house that we have lived with but we can't leave for tenants such as fly screens with holes in, walls that need repainting.
 
…I’m turning 69 years old soon (I’ve been waiting all my life to reach that magic number) but it doesn’t matter one iota on how I dress… my sweet darling wife tells everyone that I’m going through my 6th childhood at the moment so I’ve never changed my self dress sense as I’ve aged… being a hippy type of kid at an early stage of my life in the late 60’s early 70’s has dictated how I’ve dressed all of my life… I still ‘hang loose’… that is;… I always wear t-shirts (not tucked in… always ‘hanging loose’)… I try and wear ‘trackie dackies’ (track suit pants) everywhere I go but my sweet darling wife always insists on ‘poshing me up’ when we go to an event or a club etc…

…in regards to my t-shirts… I’m being kind of self absorbed at the moment… I’m putting a lot of my art that I’ve done all through my life (prior to my major stroke) onto t-shirts via VistaPrint and wear them whenever I can… I know that it’s a little bit ‘who loves themselves’ kind of behaviour but fuck it… I don’t care what people think lol!… I never wear socks or shoes around the house… I always prefer bare feet… I always tend to ‘chillax’ most times now… I’m never in a hurry anymore so I guess having that mindset now really emphasises my clothing even more now… I tend to think of myself as sort of ‘casual slob’ type of entity now (except for when Mrs Sticky makes me ‘posh’ when we go out somewhere lol!)…

…but yeah… nice and easy for me for as long as I can… kind of like…


…life is for living it… not for just being alive… cheers.
 
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