The 13 fashion mistakes you MUST not make if you’re over 50: From buying in the sales to wearing beige, SHANE WATSON reveals her top New Year style tips
You’re never too old to make a fashion mistake and we all get it wrong now and then (when we’re in a nothing-to-wear pre-event panic for example).
We can’t change human nature, but we can aim to avoid the following mistakes in 2025…
1. Buying too early
Admittedly this is a tricky one because what if you see the dress of your dreams, you don’t snap it up, then regret it forever? That could happen.
But for every time it has happened to me, I can think of 20 occasions I’ve bought early and regretted it.
Get a feel for the season, take your time, bear in mind that shops like Zara refresh their stock every week, and recognise that often the ‘Ooh, That’s So Me’ feeling is really ‘At last, it’s Spring’.
2. Buying in the sales
Beware the lure of discounted clothing – you’ll probably never wear that jazzy plaid coat
Fine to buy in the sales, but only if it’s something that will fill a nagging gap in your wardrobe.
I bought a nice plaid coat last January for less than half price. Madness not to!
But I didn’t need it, hadn’t been looking for something like it, and I’ve never worn it. (Note: if there’s a great sheepskin jacket on sale, go for it. You’ll wear it for ever.)
3. Not knowing exactly where you’ll wear it
It looks great, makes you look slimmer – it’s a no brainer surely? But when will you wear it? That’s the all important question.
We all have an office-dress-up level, a party-dress-up level, and it’s different from someone else’s.
I have a gorgeous silk print blouse that’s somehow just too fancy for the life I lead. I’d give it to Claudia Schiffer if I knew how to get hold of her.
4. Tricky fashion
In life there are many things, recipes, people, books, that are just not worth the effort and the same applies to clothes.
The ones with all the buttons, that require the special bra, with the sleeves that pinch under the arms… and the tricky shoes.
I like a half gladiator-style sandal. I bought a pair this year to freshen up summer dresses, which they might well have done had I not always looked at them, sighed, and chosen the less fiddly slip-on-and-go option.
5. Getting the Too Nice Thing
The Too Nice Thing (TNT) is for the woman who has events, themed parties and a drawer for cream sweaters. You could get the TNT for, say, your daughter’s engagement party, but otherwise say no. You’ll be scared to wear it.
6. Not wearing the Quite Nice Thing
The temptation is to hold back so you don’t ruin it/have to get it cleaned for the occasion when you really need to wear it.
The Quite Nice Thing (QNT) will stay unworn if you persist in thinking of your clothes in categories: Normal, Some Effort, Best.
The QNT is for wearing Now. It’ll go out of fashion apart from anything else. Wear all your clothes all the time.
7. Buying Two
You may love something, wear it to death and mourn it when it’s gone, but the back up one will end up boring you.
8. Wearing beige
Especially next to your face if you’re not prepared to wear cover-shoot quantities of make up. Same goes for grey.
9. Spending proper money on a bag
Marks & Spencer’s puffy faux-leather baguette is an eminently affordable handbag
Lots of women do and that’s fine. But now we have Marks & Spencer churning out astonishingly good quality bags with expensive-looking hardware and the M&S puffy faux-leather baguette (£35, marksandspencer.com) is just the ticket.
10. Black trousers
Wear brown, or inky blue, or dark olive or your smart denim instead. Unless they are velvet, or cord, black trousers feel corporate now.
11. Ignoring your ideal hemline
Everyone has an ideal hemline, established after years of hits and misses. Deviate from this at your peril. The assistant says you look great, but your gut says ‘No’, so you’ll never relax.
12. Opaque tights
Take a leaf out of Kate Moss’s book and wear sheer stockings
Beyond your mid-50s, you need to rethink tights. A sheerer stocking is far more flattering. Opaque turns nursey on an older leg.
13. Snug anywhere but on the hips
I still sometimes tip in the wrong direction. Everything from sweaters to shirts to jeans benefit from an inch more ease.
