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PURPLE IS THE NEW BLACK

Fashion

As you grow older, your style is your own, but a helping hand doesn’t hurt | We offer a guide to ageing with gusto

“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple with a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me.” The opening lines of ‘Warning’, by the British poet and author Jenny Joseph, are an ‘in-your-face’ snook about letting go of the sobriety of youth and embracing a cackling, gleeful loucheness in old age.

Viewed through the lens of fashion, however, aging raises the niggling question of the changes a wardrobe needs as the years go by. It’s worth thinking about. Not a lot. You have other things to do with your time. Consider the question, find your answer, and then let it go.

So, as we age, do we go purple and red, to clash wildly and rebelliously with our greying hair? Isn’t the keeping of greying hair in itself a wild and rebellious act? Do we sartorially go ‘gentle into that good night’ by donning pastels, flannel, and sensible shoes? Or rage gloriously like Madonna in her matador-inspired, yoga-toned-tush-revealing, Givenchy couture at the Grammy’s? Are there indeed fashion rules for aging?

Search out cuts that do reveal your flattering bits-nice collar bones, delectable décolletage

Fashion is what everyone tells you it is, and style is what you make of it! In a time when Madonna, Shabana Azmi, Frances McDormand, Sabina Singh (look her up), Amitabh Bachchan, Judy Dench, Helen Mirren, Narendra Modi and Rekha, all simultaneously grace red-carpets in very different personal readings of fashion, why really get in a lather about how our wardrobes reflect our age?

Sure, there are some rules, and they start with treating yourself well first. The clothes follow later 

If you must dye your hair, please, PLEASE, go to a good stylist who understands the effects of those chemicals on hair, and knows when to rinse out.
Don’t get out in the really harsh sun. Carry an umbrella/wrap a dupatta/scarf over your head. Your skin should not have to take a hit for your foolhardiness.
Exfoliate and moisturize. Enough said.
Everything in your wardrobe doesn’t have to be black or pastels. Go garnet, rock ruby and find the right shade of pink for your skin. (it’s not all just about Rani-pink ladies).
Don’t cover up! Too many of us get tented in over-large clothes to hide bulges, stretch marks. They’re there because you made a baby/babies! Or because you yo-yoed on weight a bit. Big deal!
Search out cuts that do reveal your flattering bits-nice collar bones, delectable décolletage… or, when in doubt, switch to saris. Just reconfigure your blouse cuts with your tailor if you need to.
Finally, please reassess your underwear! This one’s a biggie, ladies! Nothing you wear outside is really going to do the trick if what you’ve got on underneath is ill-fitting.

Other than that, it’s how you’ve evolved that counts. You can ‘go gentle’ in gracious Raw Mango saris and twinkly jewelry or ‘rage’ in vivid prints/color blocking/big hair/big jewelry/statement everything. Wear your purple with red, and the world is damned. Whatever your style, at whatever your age, THAT’S the new Black



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