Bitches, You Do You!

Take our quiz to learn and celebrate your style.

Phil Oh, Vogue.

Are we writing about style? With all the world’s troubles, from war to the pandemic to climate catastrophe and political disasters near and far? We are. Because even when it feels like the world is ending, even as we feel overwhelmed by human suffering, we harbor a sense of possibility that things might work out in ways we can’t yet imagine.

Struggling against horrific wrongs individually and collectively, even if only through protest and bearing witness, we still also love, laugh and celebrate life’s pleasures, big and not so big. Little pleasures like style.

So, another question: is that Frances McDormand peeking out from green silk leaves sprouting from a yellow Valentino gown at the Met Gala a few years ago? It is. What rule-breaking style she has.

McDormand pleases herself with what she wears, and when; with her greying, wash-and-wear wavy hair; and her animated, often makeup-free face. Her preferred red carpet looks? Valentino with Birkenstocks, or jeans with a shirt and an overcoat, or denim-on-denim pants and a jacket, a so-called “Canadian Tuxedo.” Irreverent yet casual and comfortable choices.

For a January 2020 cover of Vogue magazine, she chose a cult label Fear of God brown suit and a hoody.

Francis McDormand is one of a very few women over 60 –Judi Dench, Oprah Winfrey and Jane Fonda are others– to have graced the cover of Vogue.

She appreciated the importance of this seemingly frivolous fact in an interview not too long ago: “To still be culturally relevant as a 63-year-old female is so deeply, deeply gratifying. It’s something that I could have never expected, given what I was told. And I believe I had something to do with it. I’ve crafted some part of this moment in time. And I’m really f — ing proud.”

Pursuing our own sense of style in a society obsessed with youth and women’s appearance is not easy. For older women, rendered increasingly invisible as we age, style can be an act of defiance.

Skewered at the intersection of age and gender, older women suffer major systematic economic, social and political injustices and disadvantages. It affects every important aspect of our lives –employment, income, wealth and assets, healthcare, sex, media portrayals and representation, etc.– and seemingly trivial matters like beauty and style.

In one breath older women are ridiculed for being age inappropriate –mutton dressed as lamb– and then in the next mocked for being frumpy, dowdy, dated. We just can’t seem to win. But we can, by shifting the focus to pleasing only ourselves, to making and living by our own rules.

What’s your personal style? It can be a reflection of very conscious choices or not. You may just gravitate to some things more than others without really noticing. Or you may make conscious choices with a strong idea of how you want to look and the impression you want to create.

While we talk about different style types below –and even offer a quiz so that you can explore your preferences — your style is individually yours. It shows up when you shop, in your closet and shapes your choices each morning when you dress.

Now, the quiz. Keep track of your responses to each question, and only then continue reading.

STYLE QUIZ

For each question below, select the choice that most resonates with your personal style.

1. What’s your go-to accessory when you’re going out?

A. Handbag | B. Sunglasses | C. Scarf/Shawl | D. What accessory? | E. Can’t decide

2. What colors and patterns do you have the most of in your closet?

A. Pretty print or pastels | B. Black, white neutrals | C. Ethnic Print | D. Khaki and denim | E. Hmm. Can’t decide

3. Who’s your top style Icon?

A. Michelle Obama, Audrey Hepburn or Carolina Herrera | B Rei Kawakubo, Iman or Vivian Westwood | C. Janis Joplin, Frida Kahlo or Diana Ross | D. Megan Rapinoe, Grace Jones or Tilda Swinton | E. Roxane Gay or Meryl Streep

4. What make-up do you use most often?

A. Foundation | B. Smoky eye | C. Red lipstick | D. Chapstick | E. What make-up?

5. The first Impression people get from my style is:

A. Sophisticated | B. Cool | C. Worldly, global | D. Defiant | E. Everywoman –whatever

6. What’s your usual hairstyle?

A. Coiffed | B. Geometric cut | C. Flowing/messy | D. Short | E. It depends

7. What’s your favorite shopping destination?

A. Bergdorf Goodman | B. Boutiques | C. Free People | D. Carhart, Everlane | E. Marshalls, TJ Maxx or the mall

8. Jewelry

A. Pearls | B. Geometric, hammered pendant or earrings | C. Many bangle bracelets | D. Watch | E. The last trinket I was gifted

9. What style shoe do you wear most when going out with friends?

A. Pumps | B. Boots | C. Clogs | D. Trainers/Sneakers (?) | E. Walking shoes …maybe Mephistos?

10. What item in your closet is just indispensable?

A. Suit | B. Deconstructed or asymmetrical garment …of any kind | C. Maxi dress | D. T Shirt | E. Nada

Tally your choices by letter before reading on. The goal of the Quiz is to explore style leanings and discern any patterns.

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Done? Good! Now, consider these five Style Types associated with each of the letters. We appreciate that there are many types or tribes of dressing out there and that these are only a few types that to our minds capture some general inclinations. The goal is to explore your own style leanings and discern any patterns.

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Style Types

A. Polished and Classic style has an understated elegance that forswears trends in favor of timeless fashion. It is a more formal, understated look with sleek suits, pencil skirts, slacks, sheaths with simple lines and no doubt, an LBD (“Little Black Dress”) or two in the closet.

This style is subtle yet exudes power, and is more conventionally chic. Think Jackie Kennedy, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn.

B. Edgy and Arty style is avant-garde and plays with shapes and proportions favoring black, white and neutral colors. Wardrobe staples include tops, dresses and pants with unusual and sometimes voluminous silhouettes, asymmetrical hemlines and deconstructed pieces often pulled together in unexpected ways.

The overall look can be dramatic or whimsical, or both. Think Japanese designers.

C. Boho Chic style borrows from the hippie aesthetic of the 60s and 70s with natural fabrics and retro patterns. Its hallmarks are loose, flowing blouses and skirts, maxi dresses, ethnic garb and accessories, and a flair for statement jewelry. It doesn’t shy away animal prints, fringe accents or floppy hats.

It is a romantic and free-spirited look. Think Stevie Nicks, Janis Joplin and Chaka Khan.

D. Androgynous style is gender neutral with clothing that blurs the traditional feminine/masculine gender binary. T-shirts, jeans, blazers, Oxford shirts, boxy worker jackets, sweatshirts, jogger pants, and baseball caps are gender inclusive and worn interchangeably by people across the full gender identity spectrum without being specific to any gender.

It can have a preppy or hip vibe –think Streetwear.

E. Huh? Whatever is a style that refers to those who don’t fit a particular look. This may be because they approach dressing from a totally functional perspective. They may not notice, or even if they do, care about different styles. It is just not their jam. (It does not refer to the style eclectics who flit across two or more types.)

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What did you discover or affirm about your preferred style or styles? Did your score fall firmly into one type, favor two, or eclectically cover all the bases? Maybe, it inspired other reflections or questions about what appeals to you or not. And, possibly the quiz confirmed that you don’t give style and how you dress much thought at all, a “Huh.Whatever” type.

Or perhaps you were reminded that pulling an outfit together, from tops, bottoms and layers to shoes, earrings and a little more or less make-up than usual is a simple, easily accessible pleasure, an engaging form of play.

Arlinda McIntosh of Funking After 50.

Think of the women of captured by Advanced Style creator Ari Seth Cohen’s photographs and shared on Instagram, Facebook , website, books and even a film or two.

Ten years ago when he was only 25 he began taking photographs of stylish older women, and some men, whom he came across on the street. He gravitated towards how they adorned themselves, often in bright colors with outrageous hats, glasses and sometimes canes, refusing to be invisible and having fun.

Lynn Slater, the Accidental Icon.

Years later, the New York Times dubbed them and others who independently established their own followings on social media as the Glamorous Grandmas of Instagram.

Among the stars we enjoy following are “performative dressers” Arlinda McIntosh of Funking After 50, Japanese couple Bon and Pon, and Lyn Slater, the Accidental Icon.

Slater has written, “We can’t complain about being invisible or losing our relevance if we let ourselves blend into the landscape and disappear. Be who you are no matter where you are.” Good advice that you may already be heeding or might consider when you next get dressed to go out.

Bon and Pon.

Is there any advice that we urge you to ignore? Yes. Ignore any suggestions that you may be “too old” to wear this or that.

Style is a form of self-expression, a convergence of agency, personal aesthetics, pleasure, creativity, comfort and function. What’s age got to do with it?

In a recent advice column, Vanessa Friedman the Times fashion reporter and critic, responded to a reader asking whether she was “too old” to wear a jean jacket.

Friedman shared that she and her friends discuss the thorny question “all the time” of when to “retire a much-loved item.” After all she reflects, “Just because you can continue to wear a certain style or garment as you age — just because it still fits — doesn’t mean you should.” True, yet the subtle implication of age appropriateness rankles.

We trust that the other factors that guide our style choices –personal aesthetics, pleasure, creativity and comfort– lead to good style choices without resorting to arbitrary rules about what older women can and cannot wear. Please yourself. We do.

And where do Two Old Bitches land on their style type spectrum when we do please ourselves? We both gravitate most to “Edgy and Arty,” urging each other on to suit ourselves with a why-the-fuck-not mindset. As Idelisse is wont to say, “if it pleases me, I will.”