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Apparently we’re all getting bigger – men’s shoe sizes have increased over the past three decades, so the average size, which used to be nine, is now 11 and the ‘average’ woman is now a size 12-14, whereas twenty years ago she was a 10-12. And it’s not just being fatter – we’re also an average of two inches taller than our parents and three inches taller than our grandparents.
So, how does the bigger person dress to look at their best – is it automatically necessary to wear tent-like clothing and clumsy shoes or can you look slim and stylish?
For men, the situation has improved a lot recently – the rise of sports clothing, or sport casual as it’s called in the USA, means that you can look fantastic without having to shop around too much.
There are a lot of old rules about dressing to look slim that no longer apply – for example, all the ‘larger size’ specialists used to tell men to buy shirts with vertical stripes because it was slimming – but nowadays, any fitted shirt that’s striped implies that you’re hiding your gut, so it’s better to buy an end-on-end weave or plain shirt with a good pleat in the back and let the tails hang out to conceal any tummy you might wish to conceal. Alternatively, buy a loose fit polo-shirt that fits perfectly on the shoulders and wear it with a pair of dark coloured tailored trousers. This fools the eye into believing the shirt is tailored too, and that you’re actually slim-fit!
Mens sweatshirts are often recommended to the larger guy, because they tend to be comfortable clothing that comes in XXXL sizing, but if you want to give the illusion of slimness, you’re better to invest in some pastel hoodies with a front zip, and wear them over a dark T-shirt. The V-shape that a half-zipped hoody makes, when worn over a darker undergarment, has a naturally slimming effect, especially when worn with dark trousers and black trainers which lead the eye to see you as narrowing from the shoulders to the feet.
Once again, lots of catwalks featured nautical style clothing – for women in particular this took the form of white trousers. When you’ve got your trousers, and they can be wide-leg, chino or skinny fit, team them with a striped T-shirt, Breton style, in navy and or black and white. For men, this look is turning up as striped long-sleeved tops combined with distressed jeans and boat shoes.
Also, for women, the safari look is still strong – Paul Smith had leopard print clothing worn with brown and black striped accessories and Marc Jacobs went for a more Native American theme, complete with face-paint like Adam Ant. To make this look work, it’s best to pick a colour and then combine prints and stripes in that shade, so tiger stripes work well with black trousers and a lightweight jacket in orange or yellow.
Orange and yellow turned up strongly in menswear: Dolce & Gabbana were offering dayglo orange hoodies and Louis Vuitton took egg yolk yellow and put it in everything from polo-shirts to socks. Summer shorts were much in evidence, and they were much more tailored than in previous years – worn with citrus coloured polo-shirts and crumpled blazers and those deck shoes again.
High fashion that it will be hard work to pull off this summer includes the harem trousers on offer for both men and women – while it’s a bit tempting to think that these loose waist, low crutch garments will hide a multitude of sins, what they actually do is suggest you have something (a big belly, a low-slung bum) to conceal, without actually hiding it. Wear them with care, and make sure they are darker than the top you choose, so that they offer something of a slimming effect.
The dream most people have is that they could keep the wisdom they’ve developed over 50 but get back the energy they had at 20. That’s not possible, but as our sense of our age largely depends on how other people respond to us, we can feel more youthful by looking it!
Dressing to give the impression of youth is easier than you think, as long as you don’t become a slave to fashion. Most of us have found a style that worked for us and stuck with it. Nothing is easier to put a date on than somebody whose clothes reflect the fashion of a decade ago.
Begin by looking at what’s fashionable. This year we’re seeing a lot of fashion clothing that’s based on workwear: for men that means a heavyweight shirt, solid work boots with thick comfortable socks turned down over the boot top. While for women it’s thick tights or leggings teamed with short textured skirts and a white hoodie or sweatshirt.
Decide on just one fashion item that you can wear – if it’s the shirt, don’t go for the boots as well, if it’s the leggings, pick a different kind of top, because most people over forty can only get away with one fashion pick per day in their wardrobe.
Take care with colour – as we age we lose the intensity of colour we have in our skin and that means that strong colours can overwhelm us. If you’re going to wear a red T-shirt, team it with a pair of classic black trousers rather than another bright colour, so you don’t ‘vanish’ into what you’re wearing.
If your hair has begun to grey, you may do better in light pale colours such as a light-blue hoodie or a grey polo-shirt as they don’t wash the colour out of your face. Alternatively you can always remove the grey – but go to a salon and get some expert advice on how to do it, as strange hair colour from dyes that ‘hide the grey’ are as aging as the grey hair itself.
Classic sweatshirts and polo-shirts combine to make versatile casual clothing options if your want to look good on a small income.
Worn alone a classic plain sweatshirt looks neutral and is good for almost all occasions, but you can team it with a bright T-shirt or a polo-shirt layered over the top for colder weather or to offer a contrasting appearance that is more casual.
Both polo shirts and sweatshirts can be worn with casual jackets which gives a sporty appearance or with jeans or shorts to offer a more relaxed impression. A sweatshirt is also a great accessory to tie around your shoulders or waist if you feel the weather might change and you don’t want to carry a jacket.
For men, it’s easy to choose two colours around which to base your wardrobe, such as blue and beige or black and white meaning that you can combine a white zipped hoodie with black trousers, jeans, shorts and chinos to give a range of clothing choices from semi-formal to totally casual. For women, more choice of colour is better, but picking a base colour such as navy blue around which to coordinate your clothing allows you to be sure that all your T-shirts, vests and camisoles work with all the clothing that you wear on your lower body. Smaller items, usually called clothing accessories, such as vests, belts and hats can be purchased in contrasting colours to offer variety.
Sales at shops catering to teenagers have dropped sharply in recent months, partly because so many teens are finding it tough to get the part-time jobs that were funding their clothing addiction. In the USA in November, shops specialising in clothing and accessories for teenagers were the worst-performing sector in retailing, with a nearly 8% drop in sales, while established stores (those open for more than a year) had a double digit sales drop compared to November 2008.
Teenagers and young adults hare coming to terms with issues of money, budgeting and avoiding impulse buying when it comes to clothing. Their habits are very bargain savvy – many have used high street shops and stores to try on clothing such as trousers and jeans, and then gone online, knowing the right size and style, to find a bargain that will fit perfectly.
Many are also turning away from fashion to focus on quality. They say they don’t mind spending £30 on a polo-shirt if it will last them all year, but that they wouldn’t buy such a garment on impulse to wear to a party, as they would have done a year ago, because they want to plan their spending and be sure that what they buy will be of good enough quality to survive hard wearing for months. A cheap polo-shirt is not a good investment either, because it will sag and fade too swiftly
Young people are also proving to be much more practical than their parents may have thought. One university student said, ‘I’ve just bought some hooded sweatshirts to go over all my old T-shirts. That way you can’t see how faded and tatty they are underneath. Last year I would have got new T-shirts too but I don’t need them. My old gear will last until summer and I can use the money on other things.’
Some teens have even decided to go for part-time jobs that offer uniforms because it means that they don’t have wear and tear on their ‘good’ clothes while they are at work.
In the past couple of years, women have realised that as the job market has become more competitive with redundant people competing for every job, the way they look at interview is vital to the first impression they make. It’s also true that women are beginning to understand that when there are many similarly trained and qualified competitors for every promotion within a company, appearance might make the difference between promotion or staying put.
If you’re going for an interview with a new employer, see what the company literature and website can tell you about the way people dress within the company. You might see that the technical people wear T-shirts and jeans, but the sales staff are more formally dressed – this helps you to determine what you should wear.
When impressing a new employer, always dress up rather than down, if the company standard seems to be jeans and a shirt, wear a fitted women’s shirt but with smarter black trousers to show your respect for those who are interviewing you. Always try to keep to classic colours for an interview – a plain white shirt looks smart and works in all situations, whereas yellow or green or other bright shades suggest you’re not taking the situation seriously.
Once you’re in the job, remember that you can wear many clothes over and over again without looking as if you have a restricted wardrobe – the key is to accessorise cleverly to make it look as if you have an endless choice of garments. Pick simple clothing such as classic long-sleeved T-shirts in neutral colours and team them with different skirts and trousers to offer an endless range of looks.
For example, a plain black T-shirt can be worn with a cashmere cardigan, skirt and boots one day, a casually knotted scarf and trousers on another, and under a zip-up hoodie with jeans for dress-down Friday.
The snow has arrived across most of the UK, just in time for everybody who’s planning a long journey, by plane, car or train, to reach their friends and family in time for Christmas. When the weather turns bad, it’s essential to ensure that you’re dressing appropriately for comfort and safety.
If you’re travelling by car, think about the age and condition of those travelling with you: young children and the elderly suffer much more from cold and can find it difficult to keep warm in the way that the fit and active adult does. If your car breaks down, it can be very difficult to keep warm, so ensure everybody in the car has a hat and gloves, a scarf and a jacket, so that they don’t lose too much heat through their extremities or through their core body temperature dropping.
If you’re driving, think about comfort and safety – something like a pair of jog pants is ideal clothing as it allows you to stay warm in the car, but also to get out for whatever reason, from scraping ice from the windscreen to checking the tyres, without worrying about getting messy.
If you’re travelling by car, train or plane, ensure you have layered your upper clothing. One big jumper is no good if you get stuck in a hot airport, whereas a hoodie with a T-shirt underneath allows you to take your top layer off when you’re hot and put it back on again when you go outside and it’s cold. A fleece jacket is an ideal top garment as it offers great insulation without adding weight or reducing your mobility.
There was a time when it was unfashionable to wear hats. Through the 1970s and 1980s, for some reason, men thought hats were unmasculine. Fortunately this weird behaviour has now changed and men wear both summer and winter hats. A hat that keeps your head warm in winter is important to your health and there is a wide range to choose from, the baseball cap, the hood of a hoodie, a pull-on beanie etc. Any of them will help insulate you from the winter weather.
Gloves are important if you’re going to be outdoors because they help reduce heat loss from the body but also because chilled hands do not function well. Canadian police estimate that a third of winter accidents while driving happen because the driver has cold hands and thus loses control of the wheel or over or underestimates their actions. Fleece gloves keep the hands extra warm in winter and come in a range of colours.
Scarves are not just a way of keeping your neck and chest warm, they make a fashion statement too. A winter scarf can be the easiest way to perk up a tired looking winter coat and having several in different colours allows you to match your mood to your outer clothing without having to invest in several coats or jackets.
This winter the weather has been weird: floods and gales, thunderstorms and torrential rain, and to look good in such extreme weather conditions can be difficult. The most common problems are twofold – the amount of clothing you need to wear to keep warm makes you look like a tubby, even if you’re not, and the outer clothing that keeps you dry can look like a plastic sack. Here’s how to dress for the weather and still look stylish.
1. Begin by choosing good socks and underwear – if you have warm clothing on your feet and backside, you can cut out at least one outer layer, this keeps your silhouette slimmer.
2. Sticking to the rule, light for height and low below means that you wear dark colours below the waist and lighter ones above – this suits both men and women as it makes you look slimmer from the waist down than from the waist up, which is the effect we all want to achieve! Do this by ensuring your trousers are a couple of shades darker than your jacket or hoodie. Bright white is a great colour for a jacket, sweatshirt or hoodie, especially when teamed with a contrasting scarf in something like green, grey or yellow to focus attention on the vertical line it creates against the pale background.
3. Always choose a fleece jacket or a sleeveless fleece if you want to be warm without adding bulk to your appearance – core body temperature determines if you feel toasty or shivery, so having something that keeps the chest and back insulated means you’ll feel warm without looking chunky.
4. Wear a hat – the 10% of body heat we lose through our heads can make us feel very cold, so a hat can mean you don’t need an extra layer on your upper body.
Why not do a lot of your Christmas shopping online this year? You can grab some bargains as well as making your friends and family happy, and with the time you save trawling around the shops you can put your feet up and have some ‘me’ time.
While money is still tight and the recession still looms over us like a big black cloud, buying clothing online for family and friends is a brilliant idea for Xmas.
Why not get your allotment-loving father, or rugby-mad son a quality, comfortable fleece? You can choose one with sleeves for the man who spends all winter outdoors walking the dog or digging up his garden, while the sleeveless variety is great for standing on the touchline, especially if you’re hoping to be asked to play, as it keeps the core muscles warm while allowing plenty of body movement during the warm-up while you wait to be called onto the pitch.
If you’ve ever worried that your fashion mad daughter or wife doesn’t dress properly for the winter, then buy them a really good winter jacket, one that’s designed for performance, but also has enough style to be fashionable. Look out for the latest hoodies, which are incredibly popular with younger women and that are warm and comfortable enough for a winter walk or a few hours spent wandering around the High Street looking at the New Year Sales.
While you might not think young children would welcome clothing, if you get them all a nice plain white T-shirt or sweatshirt, and some fabric pens so that they can spend Christmas afternoon ‘designing’ their own clothing – it’ll give the grown-ups a bit of peace and quiet, allow the children to express their creativity and – who knows – you might find you’ve got the next Banksy or Armani in the family!
All these gifts can be purchased from polo-shirts.co.uk – they’ll be delivered to your door and you can stop worrying about Christmas before most people have even started.
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