The Emerging Writers’ Festival work, learn and play largely on the land of the Kulin nation, and pay our respects to their Elders, past and present.

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The Fashioning of the Older Woman

By Trish Bolton

For ‘EWF X Textile Message‘ as part of the 2025 Emerging Writers’ Festival.

One of the delights of shopping for vintage fashion is the possibility of surprise, that perfectly perfect unexpected something that leaps from endless racks of pre-loved clothing and begs you to love it all over again.

Which is exactly what happened to me.

In a shop, more second-hand than vintage, shelves crowded with dusty Cristal d’Arque flutes and enough kitsch to fill the Oval Office, I was on a mission to find my partner a winter overcoat.

I soon became distracted by any number of must-have frocks, heavily beaded, sequined or lavishly fringed – so much more interesting than dun-coloured winter coats in scratchy fabrics – but alas, almost all of these delicious concoctions featured size 8 on the label.

I was about to give up on both my partner’s coat and spangled dresses, when from the corner of my eye, I spied a dress, or was it a jacket, perhaps a coat, the fabric, crisp and white, spotted with black polka dots, the hemline edged in a contrasting black geometric pattern.

Resistance was useless.

I snatched it from the rack, and still on its hanger, held it aloft, ran a hand over the pleasing cotton fabric, inspected the fat black buttons. Admired, anticipated. I checked the size, searched for a mirror, my feet a waltz of happy steps, and slipped my arms into the beautifully lined sleeves.

Turning this way then that, I regarded the collared pockets, contemplated its shape, felt its comforting weight, touched again the statement button at the throat: it was retro, it was mod, it was me.

I later discovered after some research that the coat’s heyday wasn’t quite as vintage as I’d conjured, nor was it of any great value, but in that moment I was transported to my youth, imagining the coat paired with white stockings and white lipstick. And weren’t white boots again fashionable!

I channelled Audrey Hepburn who might wear it with a pillbox hat, and recalled the much-worshipped shift-dress in the style of Mary Quant, that my mother made for the teenage me, its fabric a clash of bright geometrics, that forevermore, became known as the psychedelic dress. It was the sixties after all.

The cut of the coat was classic, a trench, but would I dare wear such a bold pattern at my age? I mean, polka dots at seventy-something! That age when it is expected we fade quietly into the background, disappear into a corner, recede from view.

We are to be demure, modest, discreet, hang our wardrobes with beige cardigans and sensible skirts, also beige, that, as importantly, are dry-cleanable.

Which leads me to wonder how much autonomy we have over what we wear when we follow dress codes, slavishly, just as we (mostly) follow codes of conduct, written and unwritten rules of etiquette. Be individual, but not too individual.

Should you, the older woman, transgress these codes, you will be punished with a withering glance, a condescending eyebrow, laughter at your expense and possible exclusion.

I nevertheless imagined sweeping into rooms in my polka dot trench all swoosh and swank, ignoring glances that said what were you thinking, and reverting to resting bitchface, for which I was once infamous, in response to amused stares on public transport.

Still pivoting in front of the mirror, I decided that if I were to add this latest psychedelic number to my wardrobe, I could wear it buttoned to the neck as a dress or unbuttoned as a coat. Whatever way I wore it, it would feel fun and flirty and optimistic.

Words not usually associated with the mature woman.

It meant, also, that I would have to ignore at least one of the many commandments, in this instance, thou shalt not flaunt thyself, that dictate how women of that euphemistic certain age should dress.

You will know some of the others:

  • •Thou shalt not expose thy flesh any more than is absolutely necessary
  • •Thou shalt not wear anything short: skirts, sleeves, pants
  • •Thou shalt not wear that which clings
  • •Thou shalt not wear anything through which you may glimpse skin or undergarments
  • •Thou shalt not appear in public without donning a scarf to conceal thy neck’s fall from grace
  • •Thou shalt not bare thy arms no matter how hot the day
  • •Thou shalt not expose la decolletage
  • •Thou shalt not be mutton dressed as lamb
  • •Thou shalt not get tickets on thyself
  • •Thou shalt not think thou’est is hot
  • •Thou shalt not look sexy
  • •Thou shalt not, under any circumstances, feel sexy
  • •Thou shalt not make thyself visible (beneath which all above commandments and any others that may spring to mind, cluster)

Fashion never goes out of fashion: it shapes, distorts, flatters, transforms, it is inventive, traditional, anarchic, fantasy, eroticism, masquerade, it is theatre, spectacle, performative, it is beauty, it is epiphany. It is art.

Of course, what does any of this matter when fashion is so often frivolous, an indulgence, elitist, a distraction, fast fashion, environmentally disastrous, the women who labour over the garments we lust over, only to later discard without a thought, exploited and unseen. 

Consumerism gone mad, late capitalism at its excessive most destructive worst.

And, in this time of global upheaval and growing inequity, to think of clothing as other than warmth and protection is an enormous privilege we, in wealthy western societies, have lost sight of.

Fashion is itself a mirror of culture and cultural moments: what we choose to wear as individuals and what is deemed socially acceptable, a signifier, or, as I have heard said: a  semiotic smorgasbord. How we dress speaks of identity, of gender, male, female, or a rejection of those binaries, it denotes aspiration, class, the image we wish to project to the world.

We often associate clothes with significant moments, even if just the feeling they evoke of a time: the cream boucle suit I wore to my first job interview, the thrill of a sugary-pink sunray-pleated skirt, oh, how it swirled when I danced, the black witches-britches edged with pink lace, that shocked my parents. And of course, the psychedelic dress.

I have always adored clothes: even as a child I remember excitedly trying on the latest lovely something my mother had made for me. I didn’t appreciate then how exquisite were her creations, the work and care taken, the joy on her face when I slipped on the dress or skirt she had stayed up half the night to finish.

Even as an older woman, vaguely defined as anywhere between 50 and 100, a whisper of lace, a swish of silk, a floaty extravagance, thrills me as much as it ever did. I am, however, advised, ad nauseum, to age gracefully, to dress in an age-appropriate way, to disguise all signs of age and ageing and not subject anyone to even a peek of a body long past its prime.

Does no one pause to ask where these edicts came from and why we are so offended by wrinkles and crepey skin, not to mention those women who dare disregard the rules.

Somewhere in my sixties, I decided to reject the patriarchal norms that governed what I had worn for most of my life, ignore the commandments and fight against the erasure that so often comes with age.

In tiny acts of rebellion, I have given into a bright pink beret that I perch at various jaunty angles upon my head, and although late to the trend, anything animal print has become irresistible, I have scandalously bared my arms which are either tuck-shop or scrawny – older women’s arms are either one or the other, apparently – and, even more wickedly, have, on occasion, revealed my shoulders and decolletage.

Perhaps Gloria Steinem was right: women do grow more radical with age.

I recently happened upon an interview in one of the weekend papers. An impossibly chic stylist with an equally impossibly hyphenated surname, who, we learn, doesn’t ever take off her Rolex, was asked about an item she would never wear.

She confided that she found the Desigual printed stuff particularly offensive.

The brand of my offensive coat is Desigual.

Don’t judge, but I followed her on Instagram.

And now, I’d like to conclude with a few commandments of my own:

  • •Carest not about thy age
  • •Do have tickets on thyself
  • •Wearest whatever thy heart desires

P.S: You will not be so very surprised to learn that not only did I buy the trench, I wore it, too.

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