DRESS FOR THE “FRANKLY FORTIES”

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 4, Issue 5, 2 November 1925, Page 21

DRESS FOR THE “FRANKLY FORTIES”

I 'HIS is an age of youth we are A told—an age when the average woman of forty looks not a day more than twenty, if she is clever and knows how to preserve her looks, and how to dress. But there are many women of forty who look every bit of their age, and this through no fault of their own. Sometimes it is a matter of build, at other times the skin and complexion are at fault; at other times a woman s mental attitude is responsible. She is forty, and she knows it, and lives up to it, and her parents, friends and relations are inclined to keep on reminding her of the fact. Relations are rather

merciless on this score. They seem to take it as a personal grievance if a sister or a cousin or an “in law” without any apparent effort manages to look younger than they do. Present-day life, present-day fash—all help a woman to look young. She ought to be fresh and active at forty without any effort, but as I have said before, there are women of forty who —well, let us say —frankly forty. They are proud of their age, and live up to it. They don’t make any attempt to hide it, and look down with calm contempt upon those of their sister women who, though they are “forty-

ish,” look young. It is just . those “frankly forty” women who more often than not, these days, find their dress somewhat of a difficult problem. Dress styles are all so simple, so youthful and so pretty that the “frankly forty” woman doesn’t care to adopt them. She clings instead to the fashions of ten or fifteen years ago. and is hurt when her husband doesn’t want to take her out because she looks dowdy, and has nothing fit to wear. She gets annoyed with her children when they express a wish that her next frock should be a really smart one, and in trying to live up to her forty years, she .does moreshe often makes herself look as much as fifty or sixty instead. I do wish the women of this type would alter their mental attitude towards ■ their age. What’s the harm in not looking your age if you make no flagrant effort to disguise it? There are women of fort}'- who look very young indeed without any kind of “make-up” or hair dye or other such subterfuges. They merely keep young in their mental outlook, lead healthy lives in healthy surroundings and cultivate a good taste in dress. They avoid extremes in fashion, and yet at the same time take care not to be out of the fashion. They leave jumper frocks and fluffy'bobbed hair to the girl of sixteen, and choose simple well-fitting gowns made on long, becoming lines, and if they must wear their hair short they have it nearly shingled. There can be a great deal of dignity about a neat shingle, as you all know.

! I 'HE woman who is forty and -*• looks it must resign herself to her fate, but she needn’t resign herself to be a dowd for all that. Let her keep up to date in her dress, and her menfolk will be proud to take her out and be seen with her. The very thin, angular type of “frankly forty” woman looks her best in high collars. These need not be stiff or hard a softly-draped throat-band with an upstanding white plisse georgette frill is becoming to most women who have a long neck, but more especially so to the woman whose throat has become “stringy” with advancing years. ' 1 'HE stoutly-built woman of forty with a double chin and a more or less florid complexion is even more difficult to dress than her angular sister. She should keep to dark and neutral shades and have her gowns built on cross-over lines in front, and straight or with a pouched effect at a low waistline at the back. Soft, easily draped materials, such as marocain and crepe de chine, are more becoming to a full figure than cloth, gabardine or serge. And the stout “fortyish” woman should never wear satin or other materials with a shiny surface. The duller the material the more becoming it will be for her. Needless to say, she should have her gowns cut as long as possible without being dowdy, and she shouldn’t wear light flesh-coloured stockings like her sister woman who is forty and looks twenty. She should have her stockings to match her gowns instead.