When you are young and – well, I was going to say nubile, please don’t cancel me – you get a lot of attention for the way you look. This is not just about beauty, but about swagger, and the kind of clothes you wear. And this attention feels very much like power. By which I mean that attention brings with it many of the same privileges of power, by making life run more smoothly. Doors open for you. It is a bit like having great presence at the bar, but you get to leverage it for life in general rather than just when getting the pints in. You are the centre of attention and that is easy to confuse with thinking you are terrifically important.
Attention is not power, though, because it is turned off and on not by you, but by the people doing the looking. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so, therefore, is the power of it. At some point, people look away. As you get older, you get less attention for the way you look. This is a sweeping generalisation, obviously, and some people have a different experience, but I think most would recognise it as broadly true.
I am less interested in the rights and wrongs of this than I am in the different ways people react to the change, in the way they present to the world. The expectation, especially for women, is that as we get older we should adopt a meeker, mousier wardrobe. Accept a less prominent position, step back into the shadows, now that the roaming spotlight has moved on. Some people are quite happy to do this – not everyone had been comfortable in the limelight to start with, after all – while others rail against it and do the exact opposite. When I am an old woman I shall wear purple, as Jenny Joseph wrote.
I can definitely see the logic of dressing to make yourself more visible as you get older, and if that’s your bag, I will defend to the hilt your right to do that. But it’s not mine, and there is another way to look at this. The power was always an illusion, after all; so really, you haven’t lost anything. The lack of attention can be liberating. There’s something wonderfully relaxing about being able to bumble along without eyes on you. You get more time to yourself, in a funny way.
That’s how I feel, anyway. Not that I plan to go full dormouse just yet. Instead, I am very much enjoying the power of low-key dressing. What I find I want now are clothes that have quiet confidence. An outfit that speaks of good taste without needing to shout about it. The sort of clothes that don’t whistle for attention, but nonetheless have something interesting to say.
With fortuitous timing, fashion is now going through a golden age of understatement. Many of the most influential fashion-week names are going big on timeless, easy-on-the-eye clothes with no theatrical flavour. In Milan, Gucci has done an about-turn from being borderline fancy dress to selling perfect versions of deliberately normal clothes: jeans with kitten heels, that sort of thing. In Paris, The Row has the fashion faithful absolutely losing their minds over long, entirely plain wool coats. On every front row in every city, all-black is back as a look.
Quiet luxury has evolved from being an abstract concept – I know, let’s pretend we’re in Succession! – into a real street-level trend that legitimises dressing just to look nice and be comfortable, with zero bells and whistles. Quiet luxury is sticking around for so long that, this being fashion, we’ve had to make up a new name for it, so listen out for “opulent realism” as the new in-vogue label to drop. Opulent realism is about clothes for real life, chosen with care. Clothes that speak highly of your taste, without yelling about your look.
Clothes that don’t scream for attention are, funnily enough, having a moment. But the best part? They feel just as good when no one’s looking.
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Styling assistant: Sam Deaman. Hair and makeup: Sophie Higginson using Davines and Tom Ford beauty. Model: Cynthia at Milk. Blazer and dress, both by Raey from matches fashion