style at any age...well mainly after 35

it is a falsehood that fashion and style are the exclusive domain of the young, the rich or the thin. Like air, it belongs to us all and I will breathe it in until the universe sees fit to end me. That said,
"age appropriate" are two of my least favorite words. Why? Because it is rife with condescension. Does it make sense to allow a twenty something staff writer to tell me what I should or should not be wearing? No, it does not.

The truth is...my youth was for experiments, mistakes, trends and other fashion disasters that helped me form my opinions. I didn't really come into my own until 35...which was rather recent. I'm not saying that younger women aren't fashionable because I know plenty that are...style is something else, and I know very few who possess it.

Style is ambiguous. It is something that is artfully positioned somewhere between being delightfully well dressed and being delightfully oblivious. It is carriage and fortitude. It is experience and posture. It is guile and guileless, it is magical...and in most cases if not all, the area where older men and women have their younger counterparts beat.

I am a woman on her way to being older. I write about older woman because I am one of them. I do recognize that "older" is relative and age is just a number. But I can tell you, that as you begin to rack up those years...your perception of yourself changes and if you are lucky, right around thirty five... you begin to see something better emerge. Something beautiful, because hopefully you can find some peace in your own reflection. That moment is style. The moment when you realize that everything is subjective and it doesn't matter what you weigh, how much you have or how old you are. Style is substance.