Today’s fifty-something woman is not ready to become a matron. She isn’t looking for shapeless housedresses and orthopedic shoes. She wants to be fashionable and in style. Finding fashion that is youthful without looking as if you robbed your teenager’s closet is not always easy. We want to keep up with trends without being trendy. After all, we were part of the coolest generation ever, setting trends that changed ideas about music, life, fashion and the world.

According to the title of her book, Sherrie Mathieson wants baby boomers to stay “Forever Cool”. A former costume designer for TV and films she now works as a consultant, helping clients find their personal fashion style after fifty.

“Stores today are overflowing with badly made, gaudy styles that defy good taste,” Mathieson writes. “As we age, it can be difficult to find appropriate, comfortable, practical and chic clothing among these toxic fashion trends.”

Read more of what Sherrie has to say here.

You can also visit Sherrie’s website.

Plus-size women have had an unpleasant history of finding clothes that are acceptable.  Acceptable, meaning in this case, high fashion, stylish, with a good fit, and a reasonable price.  Why should anyone over a size 14 have to wear matronly, dumpy-looking clothes made out of polyester?  Is a plus-size woman’s money any less green?  And yes, anything over a size 14 is now considered plus-size.  Nowhere has this been a bigger problem than in lingerie.  Even if the suit or slacks, jeans and shirt, or hoisery and shoes were right, chances were that was on underneath was wrong. 

Those days are gone.  Lane Bryant has seen to it and it is no surprise that they are the retailer who has taken this step and brought women’s lingerie to plus-size women in a classy, elegant, and/or playful way.  Their new store, Cacique, is devoted to the plus-size women and lingerie that is nothing less than gorgeous.  They carry anything you could want, and if there isn’t a store near you, you can shop online. 

And guess what?  The Web site was put together by people who were thinking!  The models aren’t size six anorexic girls.  These are real plus-size models and they prove, by these photographs, that plus-size is just as sexy and elegant, as any other size.

Now… go shopping – you know you want to! 

Cacique Online

Press Release

I am not a snob. Liz Claiborne I want you to know that. Liz Claiborne  Now, having clarified that, Liz Claiborne I want to talk to you about this fabulous Web site I found.  Well, Liz Claiborne I didn’t just find it.  I went looking Liz Claiborne for it.  So it wasn’t a real discovery Liz Claiborne in the terms of, “Wow, look what I found!”  It was a coming home Liz Claiborne to a place I just feel good about. It is the Internet home Liz Claiborne of my favorite designer. Can you guess who it is?

Liz Claiborne!! 

Now I probably shouldn’t play favorites so much, but these are just the facts!  I have this most glorious sweater set and it happens to be Liz’s.  Well, it’s mine now, but you know what I mean.  And I have a weakness for her fragrance “Spark.”  And what she has done with that orange jacket and cargo skirt on her front page right now?  I love it.  Liz has class.  Lots and lots of it.  Check out her site and sign up for the newsletter – she may end up being your favorite designer too!

Liz Claiborne Official Web Site

I once had a psychology professor in college that was nuts.  I mean, certifiable, completely, off-the-wall, nuts.  He couldn’t be fired because he was tenured but the administration sure looked for ways around that.  As far as I know they never succeeded.  I was just glad to get out of the class alive.  He once (and I swear this is a true story) shot off a gun in class (yes, it was blanks but still!) to test a psychology theory about the startle factor.   I wasn’t there that day (Thank you God) but they still talk about it – at least when I last heard.

He once proposed a theory that kept class going for an hour.  I personally think he just never had anything to lecture about and just wanted to watch everyone argue, but whatever.  His theory was “gravity sucks.”  Now before you snort, think about it.  A sucking “motion” pulls things in, like a straw, right?  So if the earth sucked, wouldn’t we all get “stuck” on it a bit better?

What I can’t believe is that these students actually debated the topic for 50 minutes.  I skipped a lot of classes after that, thus missing the gun incident, and still aced an “A.” 

But what I can’t believe even more than the stupid debate is that he was right!  Gravity does suck!  Not because of what he thought – he was way out there in some other solar system.  But I have found, over the years, that gravity sucks in more ways than one.

The first way is that this sucking motion, pulling things downward, has applied to my own body.  Things just aren’t where… well, where I left them.  Things on me!  I am not talking long trailing locks of hair down my back.  I’m talking body parts.  (Don’t panic – I’m not going into specifics here.)

Everything is lower than it used to be.  Clothes now are not only for fashion, warmth, and modesty – they are for reconstruction!  We are talking about moving things upward – fighting gravity – pushing up this, that and the other thing, into the space it once occupied.

And that sucks.

Which is the other definition.  This is absolutely not fair.  I am now 50.  I know what to do with all of the equipment I have.  I can put a 25 year-old to shame in my skill with flirting and body language.  Unfortunately, the borders of the country that this language is from has shifted.  Kind of a continental drift on my body.

That sucks. 

I find it ironic that it takes us a half-century to use the tools, that worked best a quarter-century ago, and then have to go on a scavenger hunt to find those tools.  Someone once said, “Youth is wasted on the young.” 

That sucks too!