Fashion and Age-Shaming: Style Doesn’t Have A Sell-By Date

As the former editor of British Vogue for 25 years, Alexandra Shulman is a woman whose opinions people always listen to – and rarely disagree with, such is the power that comes with having held one of the most influential jobs in the fashion industry.

Last week, however, she announced that 50-year-old Helena Christensen was ‘too old’ to wear a bustier to a party. ‘We might like to think that 70 is the new 40 and 50 is the new 30, but our clothes know the true story,’ wrote Shulman, 61, in a newspaper column entitled: ‘I’m sorry, Helena Christensen, you ARE too old to wear that’. She also opined that ‘when women’s bodies no longer serve any child-bearing purpose, we find flaunting them disturbing and slightly tragic’, adding, ‘I don’t claim that this is fair. But it’s true.’ If the column made grim and depressing reading, it’s a positive sign of the times that so many in the normally acquiescent fashion industry were moved to voice their disagreement.

‘I’ve known you 30 years and whatever you wear, you wear it well with class and dignity!!’ wrote Naomi Campbell on Helena’s Instagram feed, while current Vogue editor Edward Enninful, who took over from Shulman in April 2017, wrote, ‘You are BEAUTIFUL inside and out.'

‘Helena is an icon. It’s as simple as that,’ says Marcus Wainwright, founder of Rag & Bone, for whom Helena is a collaborator and the face of their current 2019 photo project. ‘We have always focused on working with truly original talent and Helena is the epitome of just that. Her personality, individuality and timeless style has made her a true inspiration for multiple generations, industries and popular culture as a whole.’ As for her latest style choice – faced with an invitation to the model Gigi Hadid’s 24th birthday party, which of us wouldn’t toy with the idea of ditching our dreary school- run garb and slipping on a strapless black lacy basque? OK, not me, but I would if I looked like Helena (who coolly paired the top with jeans, offsetting the va-va-voom). As @jackiejaxroberts commented on Instagram: ‘I’d wear the outfit to Tesco if I looked like you in it, sashaying up Aisle 4.’

The ageing process is hard enough without people laying down prescriptive rules about what women should and shouldn’t wear – yet still the judgements keep coming. The results of one recent poll claimed that women should stop wearing miniskirts at 39; another, that the cut-off point for wearing jeans is 53. Bitches, please. What are older women supposed to wear? Smocks? Chinos? Muumuus?

Now in my forties, I have never been age-shamed for my choice of clothing, at least not to my face. With one exception: my eight-year-old daughter. The minute I pull on a strappy top, her face screws up, before falling into the sort of shocked, censorious expression that couldn’t even be forgiven if I was dressed to go onstage at the Folies Bergère. ‘Are you going out like that?’ she actually said to me one evening, in the manner of a stern Victorian husband who’d just seen his wife stick on nipple tassels.

My eight-year-old can be forgiven for wanting Mummy to wear a frilly apron at all times, but what’s a grown adult’s excuse? As @donnermarree posted on Instagram: ‘It’s hard enough getting older as a woman when you basically become invisible, but to be shamed by another woman is next level.’ As a columnist and former fashion editor of three newspapers, I know only too well the pressures writers face – male and female both – to pen controversial opinions. Bland and pleasant have zero impact in an age of opinion overload, where only the most extreme cut through. In this age of clickbait, too bad if you’re the bait. Last week, it was Helena (who has since commented that ‘flowers and an apology were received’). Next week, maybe they’ll be back to Madonna, forever chastised for having the temerity to still wear fishnets and a leotard aged 60.

Age-shaming needs to stop, full-stop. It’s unkind, it’s hurtful and, as last week’s backlash proved, it’s also increasingly out of step with the times. What a woman wears is her choice, her business and nobody else’s. As Helena herself says: ‘Let’s continue to elevate and support each other, all you beautiful, smart, funny, sexy, hardworking, talented, nurturing women out there.’

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