I think there are some things that older women are able to pull off better than young girls. Things like high heels, makeup, and structured clothes, a woman of a certain age can carry off more gracefully than her younger counterparts. Anything to do with a heightened artifice, really, looks better once a woman has been in her own skin for awhile.
Lately I have felt the urge to refocus my own personal style, to refine it by stripping away youthful furbelows and paring it down to achieve some kind of womanly elegance. As Coco Chanel said, "elegance is refusal."
Sofia Coppola captures that sense of elegant, unpretentious, self-aware style that I think an older woman can really own. She has a kind of gamine style, but without the tweeness.
Her Essentials:
- an array of little black dresses
- striped tops
- black ballet flats
- exquisite handbags and shoes
- a subdued color palette, with occasional small prints
- everything well-fitted but not tight
- unconventional erogenous zones, like the back or collar bone, but not décolleté
- shiny, washed, and simple hair
