Here's my old lady take on it:
I just turned 50. I haven't looked good in junior clothes since I was probably 30. Why? It's just my body shape. I am about 5'8". The junior clothes haven't fit me in a LONG time. I have longer legs and torso and I find the majority of these clothes just too short or ill fitting. I have noticed that even older, "tiny" women still can pull off clothes from the "in" stores and do just fine with it. But if someone like me puts these clothes on, well, I just look ridiculous. I have also found that if a tiny woman tries to wear what I am wearing, she ends up looking like a kid trying to parade around in her mother's clothes.
I have a 22 year old daughter and I go shopping with her quite a bit. These stores do have some cute clothes that I would consider wearing if they would fit me right. American Eagle has come a long way, especially with tops. My DD wouldn't set foot in there through high school and most of college, but in the last two years, she's bought a lot of tops and sweaters there and I like them too. But again, they look sort of stupid on me. I love Free People and have bought one of their long sweaters and I looked normal in it. My DD wears their stuff almost exclusively. Again I am 5'8 and right now, about 10 lbs overweight. The clothing in the younger stores just doesn't hang right. For one thing, the arms are very thin and very tight when I try to wear them, even at my ideal weight. Not sure what that's about. On the other hand, I took my DD into Ann Taylor trying to get her an "interview" suit and she looked funny in those clothes. She's about 5'3 inches, not petite though, but very thin, and she looked like a child trying on mommy's clothes as I said above. I probably need to take her to Express or something.
As to Chico's/Coldwater Creek: I do go in this stores. I have to say, even at 50, sometimes I'm the youngest one in there!!!
I have found one pair of jeans (skinny) and one long sweater in Chico's and that's it. I get tons of compliments on the sweater from the young women at work. It really is cute. Nothing else there, though, can I find. Coldwater Creek has been getting some interesting pieces of late (they've gone back to one of their older buyers) however, I can only buy an extra small in that store because the cut of their tops is truly for the "menopause" generation so it's wide and boxy and and I like my clothes fitted. They have some striking sweaters but if they a big, they look frumpy. Sometimes I can get an X-Small to work. That's the ONLY place I can ever wear an XS.
Hair: I have the dreaded short hair. But I have had it since I was in my late 20s. I was a product of the 80s when the whole short, severe cuts came into style. I've never grown it back out because, well, I have baby-fine hair and long hair doesn't work for me. I think when a lot of women hit their 40s and 50s, their once-lustrous hair loses shine, thins out, in some cases starts falling out, and the long hair starts looking awful. I have no bias towards short or long hair on any age group. I think if you have beautiful hair, flaunt it. If you have hair that looks like rag behind your back, who are you fooling? Unfortunately, many older women have awful looking (and I mean awful) hair dangling down their back and it's just terrible. Criticizing them on a message board has nothing to do with "age shaming" them, but it's an observation that it appears that they are hanging on to some distant memory of a more beautiful time that has long passed. Yet, there are older women who still have very nice hair and maintain it and that's great. Cutting your hair when you get older, once your recognize that it's not nice at 10 inches long, should not be criticized either. Maybe it just looks better than what they had.
I think there's probably a lot of truth to that statement.
No self-respecting teen I know would seriously wear that getup. Did you think that was her real hair too?
