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Mutton dressed as lamb
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
On sunday at the end of my driving lesson, i saw a 60+ year old woman in a mini skirt, tights and knee high boots. Just WHY? :yuck: What's the worst you've seen?
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And what goes on at the gym is something seperate on its own. *shudders*
The guy that walked into the pool ass naked takes the cake, though.
Aren't they more lamb dressed as mutton though?
I have to say it's not something I take issue with, mainly because there doesn't come a sudden watershed in men's lives where they have to adhere to some imaginary dress code so why the hell should there be for women. Once a woman hits a certain age she will be received with disbelief and disgust if she shows any hint of sexuality, as she is supposed to have disposed of any notion of looking sexy or womanly when she started her HRT... and should now fade into the background with "dignity" and as little commotion as possible. Pfft, it's good to see people expressing themselves, even if it isn't to my own taste.
Infinitely preferable to a wolf in sheep's clothing, anyway
Oh yeah? I bet if you saw a 60 year old in a gangster tracksuit, baseball hat and the latest Nike development in fashion trainers, you'd mention it. I mean look at the stick Tim Westwood gets for trying to be a gangster in his 40's.
If a man flaunts his sexuality in older age (be it through clothes, as these ridiculed women do, or through other means like flashing the cash or being the big I AM) he's a charming, debonaire, distinguished bachelor... if a woman does it she's a desperate old tramp and likely to be assumed to be on the game.
Do they though?
I agree that that's the way society reckons at the moment, I get why you feel that way. But is it purely because men retain their ability to reproduce as they get older/old? Or because we've been influenced into having a knee-jerk "eww" reaction when an older woman shows some skin?
Are older women generally less attractive than older men? I think we've been fooled into thinking that because of the prevalence of older men in the media, and the dearth of older women (who get replaced by a younger model while the old, stalwart man is kept on - eg. Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly or similar). In real life there are as many (if not more) older women who take care of their appearance, but that certainly isn't represented as fact in the media. It drives me nuts.
:yes:
Save Moira Stuart!
it was hideous. didnt particularly help that she was mahusive! all the rolls of fat were spilling over the top of her shorts :yuck:
what made it embarassing tho was that my sister who was about 6 at the time stopped and pointed at her and said reeeally loudly 'mum, look at THAT ugly lady' :no:
As for the "mentality behind dressing like a..." argument, who says that miniskirts and boots are the sole territory of teenagers or 20somethings? I wouldn't dream of wearing a miniskirt and boots even now but it's just my personal taste, I've no qualms about other people wearing them. Anyway even if we did decide to put age limits on certain items of clothing, how could you enforce that limit? Ban anyone over 17 from going into Select:clothes shopping for teenage prostitutes?
Surely clothes are a realm for freedom of expression, though what have we learned if not that freedom of expression always goes hand in hand with ridicule.
Women can equally be all those things. Like men, women have "appropriate behaviour and dress" for their age where they can still appear attractive and charming, yet not be judged by others. I mean look at viagra on wheels Peter Stringfellow if you want the male equivalent. Is he admired for flashing the cash, driving Lambos, and charming the knickers off girls half his age, or is he judged as a bit of a perve, in the same way that the female equivalent would often be judged as a bit desperate. Take away the fame and imagine he's your dad instead, and are you saying that people wouldn't see it in exactly the same way as these "mutton dressed as lamb" women.
I think I may have seen her also
Is it fair to put a trend-following/scantily-clad woman or even a woman who simply refuses to bend to the twinset, pearls and sensible Aquascutum coat on reaching age 47 automatically into the same category as a man who is behaving inappropriately? Not at all.
But to answer your question, I think these men are generally admired, possibly not by yourself as maybe you can see these things for what they are... but certainly by many other blokes. Certainly, by a LOT of younger women who are probably the same younger women who wouldn't pause for breath before deriding those of their sex who were past the age of 40 and daring to show skin. At the very least these men are judged less harshly and in a more tongue in cheek way than their female counterparts.
One glance at the media backs this all up. Older, powerful man = attractive, marketable and desirable. Older, empowered-in-her-relative-lack-of-power woman = total pariah... unattractive to men and the kiss of death for marketers. Largely because young women are most susceptible to the media and therefore these marketing teams - being well aware of this - want to keep things as young and conventionally "attractive" as possible. For fear of reminding these young sprightly things what they will one day become and losing their hold on them. If we went by the word of TV we'd all be convinced that women just vanished into a poof of smoke at age 40, because they are very rarely - if ever - allowed to grow old in the public eye. A newer, younger, sleeker model is wheeled in. If that makes sense to anyone but me.
Oh, and as for women wearing miniskirts over a certain age. As someone who may have flicked over during Trinny and Suzannah on occasion, it's because your upper thigh starts to look less attractive the older you get, whereas you lower leg remains the same, so generally speaking older women will look less attractive in mini skirts.
Yeah, yeah, we all know you watch obsessively and record the repeats on UKTV Style
Of course our bodies fail us and start to look a little sad the older we get, but surely decisions on what clothing is appropriate should be made individually (and by the person concerned, rather than a chorus of judgement) and according to what looks good. There are some 20 year olds with far worse bodies than 60 year olds and yet it is far less socially appropriate and acceptable to comment negatively (and publicly) on the former isn't it? That's a pretty clear indication that it's ok - and common - to be disgusted by age regardless of a body's condition. General rule being young, dimply rolls of blue-tinged flesh > slim though admittedly less firm older flesh? Interesting, isn't it
No. I've lost count of the number of "I can't stand it when people have a roll of fat hanging over the top of their trousers" comments on this site.
Most people would come out with snide comments about a woman who they considered "mutton dressed as lamb" without fear of being reprimanded or pulled up on their comments/attitude by their peers, but far fewer would comment on a fat girl's muffin top or similar. Sure, it's probably largely because none of their accquaintances are older ladies so they feel "safe" casting scorn and criticism whereas some of the accquaintances are more likely to be/know fat young women.
I guess it's not a big deal... certainly not to most people anyway, I just think it's an enormous cop out. I find the double (triple?) standards applied are really sad... not to mention the fact that people's attitudes can be really ugly with no justification.
I don't care how good she is for her age, it's just so wrong!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E0J3pOlKbA
Stringellow and Hefner do seem to get a bit of a pat on the back in a "nice work if you can get it, mate" type of way, but most people can see that they're dirty old men. My experience of men trying to relive their youth is through dirty old men chatting up girls in nightclubs, and also trying to get off with people my age that I work with. I've seen older men with trendy haircuts, silver chains, ripped jeans and trainers and cringed. While it isn't as obvious as women who dress in a certain way to relive their youth (men's clothes aren't as sexy as women's clothes at any age), it's the same point of principle behind it. But because blokes clothes aren't as "flaunty" or "sexy" as girls fashion tends to be, it's not picked up on as much, and I don't think it goes much deeper than that.
You do get some fantastic looking older women though, Barbara Windsor and Lulu spring to mind.
There's a male singer here who wears (or used to wear) his shirt unbuttoned and all the girls are screaming about him. I'd say that's a sexy way for a man to dress. But if I was an average 50 year old man wear the same thing that this singer did at 25, I'd think the same I would for a 50 year old woman wearing something sexy that mostly 25-year-olds wear.
Why would anyone wear that stuff? because they like the way it makes them feel.
Haha, you cheeky git :razz: I did go off about it a bit - I guess I can blame the old hormones - but in honesty it is something that sticks in my craw.
I agree that the basic difference in the nature and motivation behind the clothes that men and women - respectively - wear, means that they definitely aren't judged the same way. I doubt that'll ever change really, though. Sigh...
because think about it, that was the fashion in the 1960s and if she's in her 60s now she would have been in her 20s then. So that is the fashion of her day.
Also maybe her parents didn't let her wear that kind of thing when she was younger so she's making up for it now. Maybe her parents have just died recently and so this is finally her chance.
Anyway, knee-high boots look good on anyone. (Well on women anyway)