Style | 08/16/2009 11:00 pm
The Rules of Looking Alluring Over 40 From Glenda Bailey and More (Photos)
wowOwow sought advice from the finest fashionistas and designers at the Couture Council Annual Summer Party, which saluted the programs and exhibitions at The Museum at FIT.
Photo Essay
wowOwow asked the wisest and finest fashion gods and goddesses: How can the over-40-year-old woman look alluring — without looking over the top or tawdry? To allure means to entice, attract and wOw, and while this may come easy for some women, others find it more difficult. As a result, time and time again we experiment with our makeup and clothes and dabble in plastic surgery, in the pursuit to find the look that best captures our inner charm from the outside. From the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, Glenda Bailey, to the coveted up-and-coming designer Christian Cota, flip through this slide show for great advice from style experts, fashion designers and more people in the know.
Tell us: How do you make yourself look alluring? Does it come naturally? Do you have to try to keep up with your appearance? Or do you not concern yourself with your outer appearance?
Tell us: How do you make yourself look alluring? Does it come naturally? Do you have to try to keep up with your appearance? Or do you not concern yourself with your outer appearance?
Read more about: Aging, Amy Fine Collins, Beauty, Christian Cota, Dress, Fashion, Glenda Bailey, Hairstyles, Patricia Mears, Self-confidence, Style, Susan Tabak, Yaz Hernandez
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38 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
I might go out and buy a new top or dabble in some new makeup and the new age defying creams..but I am comfortable in my own skin, Finally!!! I do wear moisturizers at night and day.
I feel like I did back in my 20’s 30’s and I still feel like I could get want I wanted..If you know what I mean!!LOL
I doi love life much better now than I did in my 20’s or 30’s!!! I wouldn’t go back to that time of mind frame..ever!!
I went for alpha hydrols, early on (well, in my 50s)~and glad I did; however, in truth, I have no definitive data to prove it, since the rest of my life has been based on HEALTH. But, being a "Risk - Level 10" for skin cancer, I avoided the sun, take my heaps of Vitamin D, Calcium, Magnesium, and eat tons of high roughage foods, daily to counteract any great sun I enjoy (well-covered that is), but was burned to body size blisters as a kid in Michigan on the docks at our cottages, etc. So, now I see the dermatologist every 6 months. At least they’ll ‘catch’ it early, or earlier … I hope.
You are indeed what you think. It is as simple as that! I am that Phenomenal Woman who Maya Angela wrote about. In my mid-forties, and still catching the eye and fancy of both men and women, younger women wonder why and how I capture the attention from the opposite sex that they crave; that they indeed feel entitled to – after all they do have youth on their side. I know that it is confidence and genuine love that escort me into a room: arm-in-arm, we walk tall and proud. I am beautiful. I am love. I am love/beauty. I exude both: two entities that are completely and utterly irresistible. I cannot wait to engage in conversation with strangers who could possibly become friends. I feel instantaneous camaraderie – a sisterhood/brotherhood/mankind-hood – that creates a connective binding of positive responsiveness. People feel that energy of inclusion and friendliness, and they respond in kind – with love and curiosity. It’s reciprocity at its finest. I know that even when I am sixty, seventy, eighty or ninety that the same Universal Love that embodies my spirit today will seduce the spirit of others. Although my cheeks are high, my legs are long, my features are delicately balanced – all the attributes that society demands in its physical beauty — I know that these external aesthetics are not what captures goodness and love, but rather the embodiment of enduring love and respect that I have for all mankind. I will NEVER be lonely, or without friends because I love, therefore I am loved!
Right, Laura! Once, 18 years ago, I was telling a mentor (senior person) that I didn’t know what I was going to wear to an award’s banquet (I was receiving the award!), and she said, "Stop that! You have achieved everything you need to in life, and you earned the right to be free of such considerations. Go as you wish, and enjoy what you so deserve!" I never forgot that wonderful woman (once a designer for Neiman Marcus).
Now, I lean to the Katherine Hepburn attire, and embellish at will, if I wish, or … not. ;-)
Dahlings, if you’re following rules to be alluring - then, you’re most definitely not. Be yourselves, my dears.
First rule of being yourself - don’t listen to anyone else.
Ah, Patrice, when I read the caption, that they asked "the finest fashionistas and designers," I immediately thought, and they should know about women over 40 (they don’t look so ‘hot’ themsevles)? They don’t even care, except they’ll want to be interviewed, at all costs, even ours.
Enough said.