Over 50? These are ten styles you're wearing which make you look old

There are broadly four fashion ages, starting in your teens with ‘Love It, Don’t Care What It Looks Like On Me’.

The second age is ‘I Love It But Should I?’ During this phase you discover whether you are more in the ‘Must Look On Trend’ or the ‘Just Want To Look Gorgeous’ camp. It’s the longest fashion phase and you bend more one way than the other until, eventually, you find the spot where you’re most comfortable.

The third age is ‘Does My Bum Look Big In This?’ It’s not that you’ve never considered whether your bum looks big before, but now it’s your first consideration along with does anything else look big and do my legs look shorter. You still care a lot about fashion but more about how you look.

And finally there’s the fourth stage — the one we’re in now — when the overriding priority is Not Looking Our Age. In this phase you’re still fashion conscious, body conscious, gorgeous-rating conscious, susceptible to the odd mad purchase, but everything starts with trying not to look the age we are or older.

And the secret of not looking our age is ultimately not about buying certain clothes and accessories so much as getting acquainted with the Avoidable Ageing Traps (AAT) and making sure you don’t fall into them.

There are some things you take for granted that, in your fifties, you need to reconsider, like your bra size. There are clothes you own that seem innocuous and useful that may need discarding precisely because innocuous and useful is ageing. And there are safe solutions you need to put on the Wear Less list — navy tailoring, believe it or not.

The good news is that fixing most of the ageing traps doesn’t involve spending money... 

Still wearing black 

Maybe you saw the picture of Helen Mirren in a pink dress that had a triangular keyhole without showing any cleavage (tick). 

A black dress would have been predictable, and an AAT. Strong colour and a bold cut beats the subtle options and her hair was suitably smooth (tick); her earrings were the size of gulls’ eggs (tick) and her lipstick was a shade of the same pink (tick). 

Green cardigan, £89, marksandspencer.com

She looked 78 going on 58. On a personal note, I couldn’t tell you what any of the women I had supper with the other night were wearing (blackish, darkish clothes) apart from one seventy-something in a pink cardigan – looking dazzling amid people young enough to be her children. 

I’ve followed suit and bought an M&S cardigan in green.

Being too tasteful 

A grey or navy jacket with a white shirt and straight jeans looks great on your twenty-something daughter, but you may look a little underwhelming. 

(Stealth wealth dressing is not the friend of the older woman, even the wealthy ones.) Instead, wear a red striped shirt; knot a patterned silk square at your throat. If you have a fun fur neck tie, wear it now with tailoring, ditto snakeprint or leopard accessories. 

Wear your wider jeans. Get out your bigger earrings. And forget about pretty prints: go bold or abstract or go home. 

Maxi dress, £195,kitristudio.com

A bigger scale floral print in bright colours (no faded pastels), strong stripes, louder spots is the secret to avoiding looking just too old for your pretty dress, while a flash of colour near your face will do more for your complexion than any anti-ageing cream.

Skipping a salon blow dry 

The two most common ageing traps are a) too done hair and b) too undone hair.  

Admittedly this is a tricky area but glossy, well-dyed, well-groomed hair is the foundation of looking good for your age and you have to spend roughly 80 per cent more time on it than you did 20 years ago. 

The natural look you wore in your thirties is messy in your fifties and tired looking by 60. An Elnett blow dry is just as ageing, but a slightly messed up blow dry... bingo!  

And try some Philip Kingsley Finishing Touch Polishing Serum (£12, marksandspencer.com) for last minute shine.

Sleeveless (unless you have the arms)

You’ll often find a good looking fit and flare dress, which happens to be sleeveless, and you might even try it on, hoping for some miracle, or thinking about wearing it with a cardigan, but stop right there! 

If you’re not prepared to show your arms, don’t buy sleeveless and (sorry to bludgeon this home) unfit arms are top of the AAT chart. 

Monica Lewinsky, 50, wearing Moya linen two piece, £298, thereformation.com

Midi dress, £199, hobbs.com

If you do have great arms then this counts as an exceptional feature for your age and you should get them out whenever you can. 

See Monica Lewinsky in the new Reformation campaign red two piece. Would it have had such impact with sleeves, or on a younger woman? Absolutely not on both counts. 

Past-it undies

Refresh your underwear drawer or – to put it another way – sort out your VPL (Visible Pants Line) and your VBB (Visible Bra Bulge).VBB is all about a too tight fit. 

Try bras on in a place where you can be measured (Marks & Spencer). 

VPL is easily solved by swapping saggy cotton for techno fabric (the secret isn’t bigger pants but a seamless, slinkier fit). 

Underwear 3pk, £16, marksandspencer.com

I swear by Marks & Spencer’s Body range Flexifit Modal high rise shorts (£16 for a three pack, marksandspencer.com) for what it’s worth. 

Everyone needs to revisit their underwear sizing post-50, not just because a proper fit makes all your clothes look better, but because a poor fit is very ageing. A bad bra can make you look like a sack of potatoes; a good bra improves your posture.

Not wearing sunglasses

The big mystery is why – when sunglasses can cover your morning puffy eyes, add a frisson of film star glamour, are the one designer item we can just about afford then wear for nine months of the year – women don’t take sunglasses more seriously. 

Sunglasses are sophisticated, concealing, deliver terrific cost-per-wear value and finish off your look the way a hat might once have done. 

Better still, these days they don’t date so much as find a new role. We’ve all got old sunnies stuck in a drawer. 

So long as they’re not wraparounds, get them out and wear them; think glamour all the way and never ever wear them on your head. Ageing. 

Keeping things for the best 

Keeping things for best is a classic AAT. You don’t have to wear your best wedding dress to work from now on, but you could think about getting out your leopard print coat and wearing it to death, because a bit of leopard is an age uplifter in any season – and it was big on the Dior Autumn 2024 catwalk.

The same goes for jewellery. Big pearls on hoop earrings or a substantial chain are still going strong. 

Earrings, £55, jigsaw-online.com

A punchy earring will do much more for you these days than a feeble glinting stud.  

And a big brooch is a great way to bling up plain tailoring. Take a look at Jigsaw’s bold sculptural necklaces and earrings. 

Jewellery doesn’t have to be big, but the days of the delicate gold chain are over and that suits us. Delicate anything disappears on the 50-plus.

Dressing cute  

A little drummer boy jacket is fine, but not the matching tailored culottes. A hint of a ruffle on a collar, but not a full white puritan half moon or a giant lacey ruff. Knowing your cute limit means checking your wardrobe for the following and putting them in the charity shop pile:

• Bows on anything (a big dramatic bow can work, a pretty bow may not)
• Delicate floral prints
• Peter Pan collars
• Pearl buttons
• Decorative waistcoats
• Short puffed sleeves
• Pedal pushers. They're back, avoid them.

Shirt, £199, lkbennett.com

Adidas Originals Gazelle (£85, size.co.uk)

Not paying attention to shoe trends 

The right shoes may be all the fashion injection you need. 

If you happen to have some gold strappy sandals hanging about then they are just the thing to revive your old jumpsuit or to wear with trousers or a midi skirt. 

Silver strappies work too. And keep wearing your trainers, but, for fashion credibility, make sure they are the right ones: Adidas Sambas or Adidas Originals Gazelle (£85, size.co.uk) in mixed brights. Anything but plain white.

Hiding your waist

Fashion has loosened up and a little bit of roominess is the difference between looking modern and at ease and left behind. Say no to tight and yes to definition. Get used to showing a bit of waist, whether that’s French (half) tucking your shirt into the waistband of trousers, or wearing a waisted ribbed top with a skirt. 

Jumper, £60, and skirt, £85, boden.co.uk

Things to take to the charity shop now

• Crochet. If you happen to have any, get rid.
• Your 'nobody is looking' jeans. Why not wear the ones that make you look good?
• Big linen shirts
• Jersey wrap dresses
• Floppy black trousers (unless for travelling)
• Little tailored jackets. Keep your bigger double-breasted and cropped edge-to-edge ones
• The black biker jacket. From now leather is pale or brown and suede
• Narrow fit, narrow lapel jackets
• Tyre track boots